The 26th edition of the Vilnius International Film Festival has been taking place from March 18 through to April 4, 2021. The festival this year reinvented itself in these times of pandemic so it has taken place in the Lithuanian capital’s six top hotels. And, for couch potatoes, also online. Its program brings recently awarded festival hits and some of Lithuania’s best features and shorts into people’s homes. Or hotel rooms.
Kindly, the festival organization sent a few goodies my way, which you can see in my Instagram post below. The chocolates were delicious and the T-shirt is the perfect size (amazing they got it right!) and will look dashing with jeans and a black blazer — very Dior cool!
This year marks the first-time anywhere in the world that the film and hotel industries join hands to beat the online blues. Vilnius residents are invited to tear themselves away from their couch and check into a hotel for the full festival experience: red carpet, step-and-repeat selfie moments, brand new and award-winning films beamed straight into their hotel pod. With the flick of a switch hundreds of hotel rooms will turn into screening rooms.
“When you cannot go outside and the media is blowing up with negativity, it is hard to stay sane,” says Algirdas Ramaška, CEO of Vilnius International Film Festival. “We help people to redirect their attention to more positive thoughts."
Festival programmers Aistė Račaitytė, Marija Fridinovaitė, Andrei Tănăsescu led by Artistic Director Mantė Valiūnaitė curated the cross-sectional theme “To Act and/or To Be”. Diverse in geographical and historical sense, the selected films tackle the choice between acting and being on various levels, such as the philosophical, ethical, political, psychological, social and environmental.
Classics like Portrait of Jason by Shirley Clark or The Green Ray by Èric Rohmer resonate with new titles such as Residue by Merawi Gerima or Gritt by Itonje Søimer Guttormsen. Recent Berlinale winner Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn by Radu Jude opens the discussion of how we act as individuals and as community, which is so relevant in Lithuania and the rest of the world.
The festival’s European Debut Competition presents ten features, including the Lithuanian feature and national premiere of People We Know Are Confused by Tomas Smulkis (world sales The Open Reel, producer Dagnė Vildžiūnaitė, screenwriter Birutė Kapustinskaitė). The five-star jury line-up features Venice Film Festival Artistic Director Gaia Furrer, filmmaker/producer Denis Côté, MUBI VP of Content Daniel Kasman, M-films production company founder Marija Razgutė and filmmaker Lili Horvát.
The other films in the European Debut Competition include Bad Roads (2020, Natalya Vorozhbit), Feast (2021, Tim Leyendekker), Gritt (2021, Itonje Søimer Guttormsen), Looking for Venera (2021, Norika Sefa), Mighty Flash (2021, Ainhoa Rodríguez), Moon, 66 Qustions (2021, Jacqueline Lentzou), Natural Light (2021, Dénes Nagy), Rascal (2020, Peter Dourountzis), and Why Not You (2020, Evi Romen). Out of Competition film Gagarine (2020, Fanny Liatard & Jérémy Trouilh) will be an opening title for the European Debut Competition.
This year’s FIPRESCI jury consists of Eithne Mary O’Neill (Positif), Paola Olivieri (Cinema e Musica) and Ieva Sukyté, (Lithuanian National Radio and Television).
The Short Film Competition, including six Lithuanian films, will be judged will be judged by film critic and Cannes Critics’ Week programmer Nanako Tsukidate, director and cinematographer Camille Degeye and filmmaker Ignas Meilūnas.
The Vilnius festival was founded 25 years ago in newly independent Lithuania, and has since become the country’s most-widely attended cinema event, and an essential part of the Lithuanian cultural landscape. While the festival had a robust 126,000 in-person attendees in 2019, the organizers quickly and creatively responded to the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, becoming one of the first international film festivals to transition to online programming.
Find all info and the full program on the Festival’s website. And to find out more about Vilnius, check out their Tourism Board website.
The Vilnius Film Festival is supported by the Lithuanian Film Centre, co-funded by the Lithuanian Council for Culture, Creative Europe MEDIA Programme of the European Union, Vilnius City Municipality and Go Vilnius. Vilnius IFF Kino Pavasaris is an independent private initiative.