In less than a month, on January 17-23, the Vilnius Short Film Festival will invite short film lovers to gather at cinema and home screens for the 17th time. Viewers will be able to see more than a hundred films, conveniently divided by themes and genres into two national competition programs, six international competition programs and as many as thirteen special thematic programs. Having recently presented a renewed identity aimed at increasing cinema accessibility, the festival reveals the films participating in the national competition, which will be shown with subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing (SKN), and the screenings in Vilnius - with sound representation for the visually impaired.
The Vilnius Short Film Festival, now in its seventeenth year, has become the most important and largest event exclusively presenting short films in Lithuania, the first to open the film festival season. As every year, the national competition program, from which an experienced international jury selects the best Lithuanian short film, attracts a lot of audience attention.
"The national competition is one of the main axes of the festival, revealing not only the latest trends in cinema and responding to current topics, but most importantly, introducing audiences to a new generation of filmmakers. We are very happy that next to the new film talents in the festival program there are directors who have gained international recognition and are making the name of Lithuania famous in the world", says the executive director of the festival, Gabrielė Cegialytė.
Mantė Valiūnaitė, one of the compilers of the competition programs of the festival, film researcher and film curator, says: "Over fifty films were submitted to the national competition, so the selection process was really difficult. The most important criteria we chose was the completeness of the film and the ability to reveal the chosen topic in a short length. It was also important for us to reveal the diversity of genres, so that the program includes feature films, documentaries, and cartoons. I think the compiled program perfectly reflects today's young Lithuanian cinema."
What do the creators of Lithuanian short films care about?
The films that will compete for the title of the best Lithuanian short film in January are traditionally divided into two national competition programs consisting of 11 films. Bright, different emotions are reflected in the works selected this year, film directors are particularly interested in the world of feelings.
According to Andriaus Blaževičius, one of the creators of the festival's competition programs, director, screenwriter and educator, the common denominator of the films of the first national competition program could be cold. "In all the films, the characters face cold in the literal or figurative sense of the word - be it the freezing Siberian climate, the harsh Vilnius night, the indifference of the system, or the experience of an emigrant," says Andrius.
The program will begin with Rimantas Oičenko's film "Voyage", which invites you to take a trip on the ship "Nemunėlis" from the port of Klaipėda in 1975. In Indrė Juškutė's film "Detention", the audience will spend a night in a detention center with a detained girl, and in Rinaldo Tomašević's chillingly titled "-15" - Aleksei's trial period in freedom and the difficult situations of Vilnius at night. The program will be extended by "Purga", an animation by the duo of Gintarės Valevičiūtė-Brazauskienė and Antanas Skučs, which tells about the year 1942 at the Laptev Sea and the exiles fighting for survival here, and in Arno Balčiūns' film "Hubble's Law" we will follow the story of a mute young man's misfit at the construction site.
About relationships - authentically and not boring
The second national competition program will touch on the ever-present topic of mutual relations. According to Mantė Valiūnaitė, one of the organizers of the competition programs, "relationships are a common theme in films, but in order to talk about them authentically, you need a lot of courage, the ability to reflect and take a step from your own experience towards universal themes. Young Lithuanian filmmakers try to implement this task in different types of cinema: animation, drama, documentary and experimental. cinema this program looks at the relationship with parents, saying goodbye to a dear friend, and the relationship with oneself."
Skirmanta Jakaitė's animated film "Much better" will invite you to spend time with a man who is anxiously waiting for the results of tests, Milda Augustaitytė's "Number One" will accompany twelve-year-old Ariana, who is preparing for the dance championship, Severina Vaičiūnaitė's movie "When I Was a Malalietka" will spark a palette of different feelings when Sofia returns to the abandoned childhood home. The experimental work "Dear Dad", authored by Austė Urbanavičiūtė, will ask how to integrate complex childhood experiences into the life of an adult, while Vilma Razgutė's animation "Burbule" will take viewers to the future, where artificial intelligence communicates and works with people after climate catastrophes. The program will be crowned by the film "Uogos" by Vytautas Katkaus, which competed in the short film category of the Cannes Film Festival last year. In it, we tell the delicate story of a father and son, which has already impressed many viewers and international juries.
The films for the competition programs were selected by film curator and film researcher Mantė Valiūnaitė, director, screenwriter and educator Andrius Blaževičius and film critic, journalist Ieva Šukytė. The program of the Vilnius Short Film Festival includes more films inviting you to dive into the crazy, incredible and heart-pounding world of short films, which will be presented soon.
All films of the 17th Vilnius International Short Film Festival will be shown on January 17-23. in cinemas in Vilnius, Klaipėda, Beautiful and Šiauliai and on the home cinema platform "ŽMONĖS Cinema".
