Special recognition for the second year in a row
During the Berlin Film Festival, the actor Šarūnas Zenkevičius will be awarded the European Shooting Star Award dedicated to emerging European film stars. At the end of last year, it was announced that he was included in the prestigious European Shooting Stars program, which annually selects the most promising European film actors. This year, actors from all three Baltic states are participating in the program – Latvia is represented by Kārlis Arnolds Avots, whilst Estonia – by Maarja Johanna Mägi.
According to the members of the international program jury, in the latest film by the Lithuanian director Ignas Jonynas Borderline (prod. Rūta Jekentaitė and Martynas Mickėnas, Baltic Productions), Šarūnas Zenkevičius impressed them with his ability to play the character like a chameleon. In the film, the actor portrays a troubled ornithologist named Vilius, who is forced to get involved in smuggling due to unexpected circumstances.
This is the second European Shooting Star Award win in a row for Lithuania. Last year, it was awarded to the actor Džiugas Grinys (also, to Žygimantė Elena Jakštaitė in 2021 and Aistė Diržiūtė in 2015).
Three co-productions with Lithuania
This year, three films made together with Lithuanian filmmakers will celebrate their world premieres at the Berlin Film Festival – Sandbag Dam (dir. Čejen Černić Čanak), Special Operation (dir. Oleksiy Radynski) and The Swan Song of Fedor Ozerov (dir. Yuri Semashko).
Sandbag Dam is a co-production between three countries: Croatia (prod. Ankica Jurić Tilić, Kinorama), Slovenia (co-prod. Aleš Pavlin, Perfo Production), and Lithuania (co-prod. Ieva Norvilienė, Tremora). The film’s Lithuanian team also consisted of the composer Domas Strupinskas and colorist Jonas Zagorskas.
Sandbag Dam is set in a village on the brink of flooding. Young Marko’s life is turned upside down when his childhood friend Slaven returns for his father’s funeral and rekindles their forbidden romance. Marco then must confront his family and make a difficult choice.
The documentary Special Operation by Ukrainian director Oleksiy Radynski is a co-production between Ukraine (prod. Lyuba Knorozok, Kinotron Group) and Lithuania (co-prod. Jurga Kaye, Studija Kinema). The film’s sound was made by the Lithuanian-based supervising sound editor Vladimir Golovnitski.
Based solely on the surveillance footage, received from Ukrainian law enforcement, the film documents every aspect of one of the most notorious episodes of the Russian invasion of Ukraine: from the armed takeover of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant on February 24, 2022, to the hasty departure of Russian troops following their defeat in the battle for Kyiv.
Special Operation was made working with the Public Interest Journalism Lab and evolved as part of The Reckoning Project, an international initiative aimed at documenting and investigating Russian war crimes in Ukraine. It was supported by The Ribbon International and the European Solidarity Fund for Ukrainian Films, to which Lithuania has contributed yearly since 2023.
The Swan Song of Fedor Ozerov was directed by Yuri Semashko and produced by a Lithuanian producer Kęstutis Drazdauskas (Artbox) together with co-producers from Germany (Marc-Daniel Dichant, Christian Riegel, Shoot’n’Post) and the Belarusian Filmmakers’ Network (Leonid Kalitenya, Vladimir Kozlov), working in exile. The visual post-production of the film was completed by Madstone (Lithuania), and the sound post-production was done by Shoot’n’Post.
The Swan Song of Fedor Ozerov tells a story about a young musician Fedor, who struggles to form a band because everyone around him is preoccupied with the rumors of the approaching Third World War. When he discovers that his lucky daisy-patterned sweater is missing, Fedor embarks on a spiritual journey to retrieve it and write a new song.
Presenting Lithuania to the international film industry
During the European Film Market, a film trade fair held simultaneously with the Berlinale, the Lithuanian Film Centre will present the latest Lithuanian films and projects in development, consult on co-production, distribution, and other related topics at the joint Baltic stand.
This year the Lithuanian-made AI platform Perfection42, designed for visual media companies to create top quality content at scale, will be presented in a special industry program EFM Startups.
Perfection42 lets users train models on their intellectual property while keeping full control and ownership of their data. The technology combines world-renowned AI models with its own control tools to give an unmatched ability to automate workflows and ensure high-quality film production results at scale.
