During four days, we will be immersed in the world of Lithuanian cinema. We will watch cult directors’ films and discuss important aspects of the Lithuanian film heritage. We will also have a unique opportunity to talk to the filmmakers and Lithuanian film experts who will join the Lithuanian Film Days, present films, and share their experiences.
The films will be shown in the original language (Lithuanian and English) with Ukrainian subtitles.
Program
- 12/09 19:00 Children from the America Hotel (Vaikai iš ‘Amerikos’ viešbučio). Ticket price: 150 UAH.
It is the summer of 1972 in Kaunas, Lithuania. Even though rock and roll music is banned in the USSR, a small group of teenagers secretly listen to Luxembourg radio and dream… They all live in a house which was formerly a hotel, called “America”. Their innocent activities become of interest to the KGB agents who eventually try to tear up this group of teens. It is a film about the generation of Lithuanian “hippies” and the events of the 1972 unrest in Lithuania (Kaunas‘s spring) when a 19-year-old high school student Romas Kalanta poured gasoline on himself and set himself on fire as a protest against the Soviet regime.
- 13/09 19:00 Poet (Poetas). Ticket price: 150 UAH
A talented poet who was expelled from the Lithuanian Soviet Writers’ Union for his anti-Soviet literature is recruited by the NKVD to establish contact with the partisans. In return he was promised a return to the elite of Soviet writers.
When there is a war, you must choose. Who do you write for – them or us?
- 14/09 17:00 Lecture by Edvinas Pukšta on the relations between the Lithuanian and Ukrainian film industries during full-scale invasion.
Entrance is free with registration
- 14/09 19:00 The Jump (Šuolis) Ticket price: 150 UAH.
In 1970, just off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, Lithuanian sailor and would-be defector Simas Kudirka jumped off his Soviet vessel aboard a US coast guard cutter, asking for asylum. His leap for freedom set off a chaotic series of events, leading to one of the biggest political muddles during the Cold War.
- 15/09 18:00 Requiem as part of the special event Jonas Mekas Poetry Day. Entrance is free with registration
Jam Factory Art Center joins the international event Jonas Mekas Poetry Day, which will take place simultaneously in about 30 top art institutions around the world, including the Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre, the Pompidou Centre in Paris, The Shed Cultural Centre in New York, and others.
In addition to the screening of Requiem, there will be a reading of Jonas Mekas’s poetry in Lithuanian and Ukrainian. The film will be presented by Jonas Mekas’ son Sebastian Mekas from New York.
Between cinema and poetry, Requiem is the last film by Jonas Mekas, one of the most important avant-garde filmmakers, who was born in Lithuania in 1922 and died in New York. Projected on two synchronized screens, a kaleidoscope of images reverberates endlessly, allowing the wonder of nature to reveal itself. Flowers of every shape and color, trees, meadows, and leaves were captured by the artist over the last thirty years of his existence using various digital mediums, from his first Sony camcorder to an ultracompact Nikon. However, what the viewers see unfolding before their eyes is not a depiction of earthly paradise. At times, the floral imagery alternates with tragic scenes of wars, fires, and floods captured by Mekas’s camera from a distance, on television screens or newspapers. Rather than an Eden, the planet immortalized in the work appears to be the one that survived the great Flood.
Partners
The Lithuanian Film Days are organized with the support of the Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania in Ukraine, the Honorary Consulate of the Republic of Lithuania in Ukraine, the Lithuanian Cultural Institute, and the Lithuanian Film Centre. The Jonas Mekas Poetry Day is supported by the Georges Pompidou National Center for Art and Culture.