Lithuanian Film Days 2022
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Lithuanian Film Days 2022
Children From The Hotel “America”
Friday 11th March, 2022, 6.30pm
1 hour 30 mins
Cert:15
Original language: Lithuanian
Subtitles: English
Independent Lithuania’s first entry at the Berlinale Panorama section in 1991.
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.
The Jump
Friday 11th March, 2022, 9pm Q&A with director Ms. Giedrė Žickytė after the screening.
Sunday 13th March, 2022, 8pm
Duration 1 hour 24 mins
Cert 12 A
Original language: Lithuanian
Subtitles: English
It’s Thanksgiving Day, 1970. The US coast guard sets out to meet a Soviet vessel anchored just off the shore of Martha’s Vineyard.
A one-day conference between the two nations has been set to discuss fishing rights in the Atlantic Ocean. While the talks are in full swing, Lithuanian sailor Simas Kudirka jumps across the icy water onto the American boat in a frantic bid for freedom. To his horror, and to the outcry of the world media, the Americans return him to the Soviets and he is tried for treason. The event sets off a series of protests throughout the US begging for his freedom and all hope seems lost, until new information about Simas’ citizenship surfaces. Through eye-witness reports, rare archival footage and a dramatic first-person reenactment by now 90-year-old would-be defector Simas Kudirka, director Giedrė Žickytė takes us on a stranger-than-fiction journey that became an inspiration for people, pictures and politics, reaching all the way up to the White House
Runner
Saturday, 12th March, 2022, 4pm
1 hour 37 mins
Cert: 15
Original language: Lithuanian
Subtitles: English
After her boyfriend experiences a psychotic episode and disappears, Maria is determined to find and help him.
Chasing every clue about his whereabouts, she embarks on a fast-paced odyssey through the city. Always one step behind and against all odds, she fights for both, her love and her freedom