The New Baltic Cinema competition was one of the highlights of this year’s event which featured homages to Liv Ullmann and Istvan Szabo.
The festival also unveiled new talents in Lithuanian docs with premiers of four new Lithuanian films including a premier of Dreaming the Path, a doc road movie directed by Jokūbas Vilius Tūras and produced by Rasa Miškinytė head of Era Films (www.erafilm.lt) that was also screened in Cottbus Film Festival.
Other Lithuanian films making their bow were Father, a doc about Lithuanian criminal Vidas Zenonas Antonovas who stole a million rubles from the Soviet Union and spent the next 20 years in 15 different prisons. The film is directed by Marat Sargsyan and produced by Dagnė Vildžiūnaitė and Jonas Špokas of Just a Moment Films (www.justamoment.lt)
Igrushki directed by Lina Lužytė and produced by Dagnė Vildžiūnaitė (Just a Moment Films) showed the lives of people in a town in Belarus that survive by making soft toys. The Swedish Lithuanian doc Second Class looks at Lithuanian migrant workers in Sweden. It is directed by Marta Dauliūtė and produced by Elisabeth Marjanović Cronvall.
Lithuania launched the new Lithuanian Film Centre in September, one of the newest film institutions in the EU. With tax incentives for film producers under discussion for 2013 and a host of other new initiatives underway the Scandirections UK-Baltic States Coproduction forum drew a lot of attention.
Guests Nik Powell told the audience about coproduction opportunities in the UK while Tom Wood from Wellington Film Ltd (UK) and Donatas Zvalionis from Kino Kultas (www.kultas.lt) and MEED Films (www.meedfilms.com) (Lithuania) presented a case study of the UK Lithuanian coproduction Flight Redirected, directed by Emilis Velyvis and starring Hollywood action man Vinnie Jones which is currently in production.
The winners of the New Baltic Cinema are:
The Best Baltic Short - White Square, dir. Ivan Pavljutskov, Estonia
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Special Mention - Villa Anttipoff, dir. Kaspar Jancis and Vladimir Lesciov
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The Best Lithuanian Short - Liza, Go Home!, dir. Oksana Buraja
Contact: Producer Uljana Kim This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
