The Vilnius City Film Festival, which spoiled film fans for two weeks, prevented them from living peacefully and filled cinemas with spectators, "Cinema spring"The organizers estimate that they have received more than 105 spectators this year and are happy to return to previous levels.
"In recent years, the cinema industry has considered and debated a lot about whether viewers will return to cinemas after the pandemic - there were all sorts of opinions and it was very difficult to predict trends. However, already last year we felt that the audience was really coming back - the theaters began to fill up again and we faced the unpleasant problem that not all those who wanted could buy tickets," recalls Konradas Kazlauskas, executive director of "Kino pavasaris".
"So this year, when planning the festival, we are already 100% bold. we returned to pre-pandemic volumes - we planned 1300 screenings in 12 cinemas and returned to the usual two-week format for viewers, so that as many people as possible could enjoy the festival. The intuition paid off - viewers flocked to the 29th "Cinema Spring". This, of course, was also due to an extremely strong program - this year we had a particularly high number of award-winning films. In total, during the festival, we showed 85 long and 62 short subway films, and they were accompanied by over 70 special festival events," K. Kazlauskas calculates.
One festival spectator managed to watch more than half of the festival's feature films - as many as 47. "For the second year, we have offered an innovation to such spectators who want to limit themselves - to purchase spectator accreditation. This practice is slowly but surely establishing itself at the festival - at the beginning, the audience was wary of it, but in the end, the statistics speak for themselves - for the most active, it worked out and paid off. Hundreds of people with purchased accreditations watched 20-40 films each during the festival. Therefore, we hope that accreditations will continue to be popular, but we promise and undertake to always plan a limited amount of them, so that the audience can attend the screenings comfortably," says K. Kazlauskas.
The 29th "Cinema Spring" was visited by 54 foreign guests from 15 different countries: the jury of competition programs, creators, producers and actors of this year's festival films. The annual "Kino pavasaris" dedicated to the industry also received many guests event - "Meeting Point Vilnius" was attended by 260 guests from all over the world this year. During it, film industry professionals made acquaintances in the capital, presented their projects, enriched their knowledge in seminars and left Vilnius with new ideas or partnerships. The discussion on the "employment" of artificial intelligence in the film industry, organized by "Meeting Point Vilnius", attracted a lot of attention.
"All this happened thanks to a lot of people - the 29th "Cinema Spring" was organized by 96 team members and as many as 268 volunteers. This year, "Kino Prasumu" was also supported by a record number of 150 partners who helped turn ideas into reality. Well, we are already starting to prepare for the anniversary, the 30th, "Cinema Spring". In fact, we started preparing for it even before this year's festival - we have impressive ideas, we already know several films and we have a few names in mind that we will try to bring to the next festival," K. Kazlauskas intrigues.
The 29th Vilnius City Film Festival "Kino pavasaris" was supported by the great partners "ERGO" and "Telia Play", partially financed by the Lithuanian Cinema Center, Vilnius city municipality, "Creative Europe" MEDIA.
