The Vilnius Short Film Festival reveals national competition programs: mutual relations are in the spotlight

Vilnius Short Film Festival, which will be in its 16th year, will take place on January 18-24 in Vilnius, Kaunas, Klaipėda and Šiauliai cinema halls and home cinema screens. One of the largest festivals exclusively showing short films in the Baltic States will present carefully selected programs of short films of different genres and moods, which will wake up the audience's imaginations from their winter slumber.

During the sixteen years of its existence, the Vilnius Short Film Festival has become the most important and the largest festival exclusively presenting short films in Lithuania. As every year, opening the season of film events with the slogan SHORT BUT FILMS, the festival will invite the audience to enjoy as many as a dozen different film programs from around the world. The repertoire includes about eighty short films that have received critical acclaim and audience sympathy. The national competition programs, from which the international jury selects the best Lithuanian short film, attract a lot of attention every year.

"The national competition is a particularly important part of the festival for us. We started organizing it in 2015, when the growth of Lithuanian short film began to rise, and the record number of Lithuanian films submitted to the festival this year only confirms that in a few years this competition has become significant for filmmakers as well. Every year, the national competition programs reflect what Lithuanian short film makers are living in recently. This year, in both national programs, viewers will immerse themselves in unexpected and well-recognizable life situations, the unifying theme of which is relationships", says Rimantė Daugėlaitė-Cegelskienė, director of the Vilnius International Short Film Festival.

Variations of feelings and relationships in national competitive programs

The works competing for the title of the best Lithuanian short film in January are traditionally divided into two national competition programs consisting of 11 films.

Relationships are the main theme that unites the five films of the first national competition program. The program will be opened by director Jore Janavičiūtė's film "Car Park", which explores the topic of emotional health and interpersonal relationships. In Urtė Sabutytė's film "Drought", viewers will see the process of a girl who has experienced a painful breakup coming to terms with change and searching for strength. Arno Balčiūnas' film "Blausos" will invite you to take a taxi ride, with a wide palette of emotions sparking in a mysterious journey and the connection between the passenger and the driver becoming clearer. The program will be continued by Birutė Sodeikaitė's atmospheric and unearthly animated film "Elena", and it will end with Elena Rožukaitė's "Say You Love", which will invite you to take a look at the joyful and life-like, complex relationship of the couple with excellent acting.

The second program of Lithuanian short films is a journey exploring the connection with oneself and others – experiencing crises, crossing boundaries and relentlessly looking ahead. It will begin with "Departure" by Jorūnė Greičiūtė, where we will travel through the wastelands of a foreign country in search of a guru who can save a couple's relationship. Later, the audience will be treated to Simona Jurkuvėnaitė's work "Varovai" about the changing relationship between mother and daughter and their connection with the outside world, followed by Jurga Šeduikytė's animated film "Mora Mora", in which the girl Mora travels around the sleeping world and looks for ways to wake it up. nap The program will be extended by the shortest film of the festival - "Š" by Julius Stakiškis. Here, while carrying garbage, a person suddenly plunges into memories of the most awkward situations, anxiety is mixed with comedy, and all this fits into just three minutes of the film. The fifth spot of the "National Competition Program II" is the film "Mothers" by the playwright Birutė Kapustinskaitė, awarded with the "Golden Cross of the Stage", which talks about the mutual connection between an expectant woman and her mother, its differences and limits. This program will be crowned by Eitvydas Doškaus' tape "Here was Vilnius" presented in autumn. This film is like a symphony, in which the signs of Vilnius' past, which are dug up from the surface, and the constantly changing face of the current city, which is searching for its own identity, are interwoven.

Films for national competition programs were selected by director, screenwriter and educator Andrius Blaževičius, film critic and curator, publisher Monika Gimbutaitė and film critic, journalist Ieva Šukytė. The audience will see all the films of the 16th Vilnius International Short Film Festival on January 18-24. will be able to see in cinemas in Vilnius, Klaipėda, Kaunas and Šiauliai and on the home cinema platform "ŽMONĖS Cinema". The program also includes unexpected locations and special events, which the organizers will reveal later. The festival is organized by the Lithuanian Short Film Agency Lithuanian Shorts.

Information about the festival program is constantly updated: www.filmshorts.lt 

Main sponsor of the festival: Lithuanian Cinema Center. Institutional partners: Vilnius City Municipality, Audiovisual Works Copyright Association AVAKA, Lithuanian Institute of Culture, EU Program "Creative Europe" Media Office in Lithuania. The information partner of the festival is LRT.  The festival is part of the Vilnius 700th anniversary program.

 

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