Lithuanian Short Film Premieres

The Lithuanian premieres program presents prominent present-day filmmakers and their films: Martyna Ratnik’s look at her personal family history in “she’s waiting for the sunset”, Marija Nemčenko’s film “Whose Memory?”, which tells the story of a ballet dancer’s bodily autonomy, and Miklós (Miki) Ambrózy and Gailė Griciūtė’s eco-collaboration “Let Them Vanish with a Trace”, which actively involves microorganisms and fungi in the film’s processing. The documentary form becomes a tool for these creators to talk about a world connected by relationships – from the invisible, smallest forms of life to historical and family ties. The directors’ gaze is perceptive, and their voice moves away from conventional narratives. Their stories will reveal to viewers the various traces left within us, which we are accustomed to carrying with us as artifacts in our daily lives. – Festival coordinator and program curator Aušra Umbrasaitė

she’s waiting for the sunset 

My dad asks a 6-year-old me to say something for the future generation as one day I’ll be as old as my great grandma – and time begins to irreversibly move forward.

Martyna Ratnik

Martyna Ratnik is a Vilnius-based cultural worker. Her practice, spanning writing, filmmaking and curation, focuses on landscapes and their (de)colonization, the aesthetics of boredom and memory politics. Martyna’s work explores the tensions arising between grand narratives and the everyday and is interconnected by the search for various ways history – from personal to planetary – can be embodied and transgressed. Since 2022 she has been a member of the London Short Film Festival’s Selection Committee.

Whose Memory?

“Whose Memory?” is an experimental short film that follows two protagonists as they confront their past memories. The film explores the connection between their histories through seemingly unrelated subjects such as swans, homo-sovieticus, migration, and ballet.

Marija Nemčenko Aržanych

Marija Nemčenko Aržanych is an artist working between Lithuania and Scotland, and co-founder of BRUT Collective. She explores Eastern European identity, peripheral practices, and their embodiment. Her multilayered practice also aims to activate the interlinks between migration, nature, and nation-state, while critically attending to the construct of a ‘periphery’.Marija received her BA in Sculpture from University of the Arts London and her MA in Visual Arts from Glasgow School of Art.

Telieka tik pėdsakas

Let Them Vanish with a Trace 

When creating the film “Let Them Vanish with a Trace ” a connection was established between the film and soil fungi, without the authors expecting to receive any specific results in return. However, the microorganisms were generous. Although part of the film is no longer on the reel, its traces continue to circulate in the ecological system. How can this complex connection be described?

Miklos Tamas Ambrozy, Gailė Griciūtė

Miklós (Miki) Ambrózy is a Vilnius-based researcher, writer, and artist working with film. He is an active member of the Why Cut When You Can Fade artistic research group, founder of the platform Landing, and a member of the artist-run film lab SPONGĖ. His research topics include degrowth, pollution, film poetics, and the transfer of artistic methods to the broader public.

Gailė Griciūtė is a composer, performer, and sound artist. In her practice she is exploring the fluidity of sound, its ability to always transform, adapt, change, to be in relation with the environment. The artist implements her ideas in various forms: from scores with the smallest details marked out to performances or improvisations, which are created and heard only in the present moment.