The film "Poetas", which burst into theaters at the beginning of this year and won a number of awards, will soon be able to be seen by even more viewers not only in Lithuania, but also abroad. The streaming platform HBO has added this film to its catalog of films. According to the film team, whose ranks include producer Uljana Kim, who has just been evaluated on a European scale, director and producer Vytautas V. Landsbergis, and actor Donatas Želvys, who made his debut in cinema, this is an evaluation of consistent work and an opportunity to talk about important topics even more broadly.
Together with the film "Poetas", HBO's collection in the Baltic countries will also be supplemented with the historical films "Tarp piłku debes" and "Tadas Blinda. The beginning". These Lithuanian films will become available to subscribers in the penultimate week of December, before the height of the holiday season - from December 22.
"The Poet" is about painful choices
The feature film "Poetas" by Giedrius Tamoševičius and Vytautas V. Landsbergis, which tells about the desire for freedom and the courage to oppose the hated regime and is based on the true stories of Lithuanian partisans, was recognized as the best film of the Baltic countries at the "Black Nights" film festival held in Tallinn in November. The film was also appreciated in Lithuania - it won three awards at the "Silver Cranes" ceremony.
"I have never received so many messages and letters after any performance as after the release of this film. Of course, many more people saw it than the performance, but I could also see from the content of the messages that the film really moved, affected, shocked the audience - but not in a bad way. When I read the script for the first time, I was scared - how would I act in the place of the main character? This film raises extremely important questions and makes you think about choices", says actor Donatas Želvys, who made his feature film debut and played the main role in the film.
The film tells how a talented poet, Kostas, is forced to cooperate with Soviet security and sent to a small town to work as a teacher. His real task is to befriend local guerrillas and betray their identities and locations. Understanding more and more the motives of the partisans, Kostas feels bound by a dilemma: whether to listen to the voice of his heart and stay with the partisans fighting for the freedom of Lithuania, or to betray them and become a famous writer.
"We created the film, first of all, thinking about the Lithuanian audience - after all, it is a painful, multifaceted historical experience of our nation. Ten years of partisan war after World War II, the Soviet Union occupied Lithuania. However, the script already showed that the work can go beyond the framework of a local film, because the theme is human - love, creativity, duty to the homeland, betrayal of friends in the name of career, in order to please the Soviet occupiers - these themes are universal and relevant today", - asserts the director and producer of the film Vytautas V Landsberg.
According to the film producer Uljana Kim, who won the Eurimages co-production award at the 36th European Film Awards ceremony in Germany this month, "The Poet" is an opportunity to show the world the history of Lithuania, unadorned and open.
"At the same time, it's also a fascinating experiment - how to make a serious, full-fledged historical film for a relatively small amount of money. It was not created as an artistic reality, detached from the viewer and the era. It is an immersive film that recreates the post-war existential experience. In this sense, it is even a kind of psychotherapy session that allows you to live in the shoes of a charming traitor. I hope we managed to involve the audience in the experience of this story, to expand their experience so that it is not just a comfortable viewing of the film while sitting in the cinema or in front of the TV screen," says U. Kim.
According to Vytautas V. Landsbergis, the opportunity to see the film "The Poet" for the residents of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia is a joyous news for the entire creative team.
"We are pleasantly surprised that this great five-year work of our team has been so honored and the film has been included in the HBO catalog. Often at film festivals or meetings, we get questions from foreign viewers about where they can see the film - now this opportunity is available, we will be able to show "The Poet" to our friends as well", the director is happy.
It will take you to two more periods of Lithuanian history
From December 22 it will also be possible to see the film "Among Gray Clouds" by director Marius Markevičius. The film, based on the novel of the same name by Rūta Šepetys, an American writer of Lithuanian origin, will take viewers to the period of World War II and reveal the story of Lina, a girl exiled to Siberia.
in 1941 on the night of June 14, Lina, her younger brother and mother were packed into an animal train car and sent to Siberia, like thousands of other Lithuanians. In exile, the girl reflects her experiences and the experiences of those around her with drawings - they become a diary in which no lies are made.
On the same day, D. Ulvyda's film "Tadas Blinda" titled as the first Lithuanian adventure historical action film in the history of independent Lithuania will appear on the screens. The beginning".
The tape will take you to the year 1861, when Lithuania was part of Tsarist Russia, where the abolition of serfdom was prefigured by political intrigues. Fighting breaks out in a remote village of Žemaitija, which was instigated by Janek, an officer sent from St. Petersburg. Accidentally caught in a whirlwind of action, Tad must take responsibility for his life, the lives of his friends and loved ones, and discover new values worth living, fighting and dying for.
A total of 10 Lithuanian films are waiting for film lovers in the Baltic countries in December - from light-hearted comedies and films for the whole family to exciting dramas and historical films. HBO's movie catalog is currently available in Lithuania on the Telia Play platform and Go3 television.
