MoMA hosts first-ever retrospective of Lithuanian cinema
by Annika Pham
The prestigious Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York is going to host from December 4-13, the first ever retrospective of Lithuanian cinema, from the Baltic republic’s declared independence from the Soviet Union in the early 1990s to today.
“Lithuanian filmmakers, unconstrained by ideology and despite limited infrastructure, have made a number of distinguished works exploring themes of identity – both personal and national – in original, passionate and provocative ways,” said the MoMA film curators.
The programme will open and close with the screening of Raimundas Banionis’ Children from Hotel America (1990), about a group of youngsters who listen to prohibited western music and try to create a Woodstock of their own. The great Sarunas Bartas has two films in the programme: Three Days, nominated for an EFA Award in 1992, and the 1997 drama The House, co-produced with France and Portugal.
Other internationally renowned Lithuanian directors honoured are Arunas Matelis, winner of a Best Documentary Filmmaker Award from the Directors Guild of America in 2006 for Before Flying Back to Earth, and New York-based Jonas Mekas, who has played an active role in promoting and preserving cinema as an art form in the US. New Yorkers will be invited to view his five-hour long film of 2008, Lithuania and the Collapse of the USSR.
Two promising young filmmakers also have their latest works premiering at the MoMA: Kristina Buozyte (The Collectress [+see also:
trailer
film profile]) and Gytis Luksas, whose film Vortex is Lithuania's submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award nomination.
The Lithuanian programme is put together by the MoMA’s Senior Curator, Department of Film Laurence Kardish, in association with the Tinklai International Short Film Festival, Lithuania.
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