NEWS

2009 december 21 Films which had Lithuanian premieres in Kaunas Film Festival win EP LUX Prize For the second year in a row, one of the films premiered in Lithuania at Kaunas International Film Festival has won the annual LUX Prize awarded by the European Parliament.

2009 december 1 Commercial of Kaunas International Film Festival appreciated by British advertising professionals Kaunas International Film Festival’s commercial made it to the December issue of the cult magazine shots published in the UK and read by advertising professionals all over the world. The video produced by a Lithuanian advertising agency Not Perfect Y&R and production house Dansu was published as a model creative work.

2009 october 15 Independent American filmmakers in Lithuania: Go get some rosemary and life will change “Go get some rosemary!” may well become a new motto for all who have watched the film Go Get Some Rosemary in Kaunas International Film Festival. With this phrase, the authors of the film Benny and Josh Safdies expressed the tiny boundary between the state of happiness and the state of sadness. You go to get some rosemary from the store and something may change, your sadness and loneliness may be replaced by new ideas, your problems may seem ridiculous and you may be overwhelmed with joy. October 16 and 18, Kaunas International Film Festival invites cineastes to “Pasaka” film theatre downtown of Vilnius city and offers a unique opportunity to see Go Get Some Rosemary, which is an example of independent American film, and to meet its directors Josh and Benny Safdies who have come to Vilnius straight from New York.

2009 october 12 Kaunas Film Festival moves from the country’s oldest film theatre to the newest one Monday night, films from Kaunas International Film Festival will reach Vilnius audience. The recently opened “Pasaka” film theatre will screen selected new films from all over the world and invite viewers to meet filmmakers. Almost entire programme of Kaunas Film Festival will be screened in Vilnius this week. It will begin with the bold films from the Music Moves the World programme section, such as: All Tomorrow’s Parties; It Might Get Loud; Wild Combination: The Portrait of Arthur Russell; and Youssou N’Dour: I Bring What I Love, which made the audience cry in almost full screening hall.

2009 october 11 Welcome, Kaunas is confused and complicated today… Cities are just like people. Some reach for the future, some dwell on the past. Some are desperate climbers, and some are stubborn nonconformists. Some are plain extroverts marked by megalomania – they were lucky to ride the crest of the wave, to be in the right place at the right time. Now they are trailing the burden of the past, flaunting their castles and boulevards, and monuments of heroes. They have fallen hostage to their own image and are devoured by pesky tourists coming in swarms like locusts...

2009 october 11 Stasys Eidrigevičius: “Kaunas is a very important city in the path of my creative work” After the screening of the film Bouzkachi: The Chant of Steppes on Saturday night, viewers of Kaunas International Film Festival had an opportunity to meet and talk with the artist Stasys Eidrigevičius. He said he was very happy to meet the Lithuanian audience and introduce the film in which he played. “When Ilona called me and invited me to come to Kaunas Film Festival, I was very glad,” remembers Eidrigevičius. “Kaunas was a very important stage of my creative work together with the cities of Panevėžys and Vilnius.”

2009 october 9 Convincing stories of films and filmmakers on the last weekend of the festival in Kaunas This weekend, Kaunas city will take the last breath of independent film. Kaunas International Film Festival, which has been organised for three years now, has prepared a bouquet of deep and convincing stories for its last weekend in Kaunas. Famous filmmakers and artists will meet the audience on Saturday as well as on Sunday.

2009 october 8 Stasys Eidrigevičius to meet Kaunas Film Festival audience “Wake up, Stasys! Bouzkachi is about to start!” this is how Bouzkachi: The Chant of Steppes, the film of Kaunas International Film Festival starring the world famous Lithuanian painter Stasys Eidrigevičius, begins. In a few days, cineastes and fans of the Lithuanian artist residing in Poland will have an opportunity to address him directly, because he and the filmmaker Jacques Debs will in person introduce their film Bouzkachi: The Chant of Steppes in Kaunas and Vilnius on October 10-12.

2009 october 6 Organisers of Kaunas International Film Festival say: zebra is white Zebra is white; the glass is half full; the egg came first; to be – these are the answers provided by the third Kaunas International Film Festival to the questions that everybody asks sooner or later. The festival’s slogan this year is: “Film that answers questions”. The festival which takes place in Kaunas until October 11 and in Vilnius, October 12-18, encourages the viewers to accept film as the form of art which makes people think, ask questions and look for answers to those questions.

2009 october 1 Today, the oldest film theatre in Lithuania opens its door once again Today, October 1, the third Kaunas International Film Festival will revive “Romuva” – the oldest film theatre in Lithuania, which has recently been opening its door to cineastes only on exceptional occasions.

2009 september 25 A decade of a unique music festival in a documentary collage All Tomorrow’s Parties While Europe follows the rhythm of a number of huge music festivals, Kaunas International Film Festival offers its viewers an opportunity to get acquainted with one of the most popular events, All Tomorrow’s Parties, which takes place at a holiday camp by the sea in the UK and has been documented on film. The free of charge alternative music festival has been organised in England for 10 years now and always draws thousands music lovers from Europe and all over the world. All Tomorrow’s Parties can be distinguished from the abundance of other festivals by the fact that each year the festival’s line-up is assembled by a different performer or band which is entitled to invite its favourite musicians.

2009 september 23 Kaunas Film Festival introduces artists, musicians and filmmakers The third Kaunas International Film Festival will begin on October 1 and will introduce to cineastes more guests than just filmmakers, who are the traditional visitors of film festivals. The festival will be visited by three film music composers and the world famous Lithuanian artist Stasys Eidrigevičius, who has significantly contributed to one of the festival’s films – Jacques Debs’ Bouzkachi: The Chant of Steppes.

2009 september 21 Focus on film composers What would film be without music? The organisers of Kaunas International Film Festival confidently shake their heads – film can not exist without music, and present a special programme Nordic Sounds in Film dedicated to composers of film scores. Next weekend, Kaunas will be visited by three film composers from Iceland, Sweden and Norway. They will meet festival viewers and invite them to listen to some live music.

2009 september 18 Gdynia’s favourite to open Kaunas International Film Festival The key of Kaunas International Film Festival beginning October 1 will be set by Malgorzata Szumowska’s autobiographical film 33 Scenes from Life which has won almost all major awards in Gdynia Film Festival. The Polish director representing the generation of the filmmakers in their 30s pictures the experiences and questions that fell on her after the sudden death of her relatives, and through the scenes of the film matures the laws of denuded death and love. In Gdynia Film Festival 2008, 33 Scenes from Life won the awards for the best directing, cameraman, supporting performance by an actress and best film music.

2009 september 11 Lithuanian premiere of Pedro Almodóvar’s latest film Broken Embraces this October This October, Kaunas International Film Festival will screen Pedro Almodóvar’s latest film Broken Embraces (Los abrazos rotos, 2009, Spain) starring the pearl of Spanish cinema Penélope Cruz. The premiere of the film will be screened in “Romuva” theatre in Kaunas and “Pasaka” theatre in Vilnius, and will definitely find its way into the hearts of Lithuanian viewers.

2009 september 8 Kaunas Film Festival introduces the biggest European debut This October, Kaunas International Film Festival will screen British director’s Steve McQueen’s Hunger – the film that has been acknowledged the greatest discovery of 2008. The filmmaker’s first full feature film combining violence and beauty has been praised by the celebrities of the European film industry.

2009 august 31 This year, Kaunas International Film Festival will take place in venues dear to film October 1-18, Kaunas International Film Festival will infuse two exclusive Vilnius and Kaunas movie theatres with magic film spirit. In its home city, after a one year break, the festival will return to the legendary “Romuva” cinema, which has been closed to the city residents most of the time. Meanwhile in the capital, the festival films will be screened October 12-18 in the new “Pasaka” cinema.

2009 june 5 This weekend in Vilnius – films reflecting the real America On Friday, “Redux: Independent American Film Cycle” arrives at Vilnius cinemas. Films created by independent American filmmakers little known in Lithuania grabbed Kaunas audiences and this weekend will be screened in “Skalvija” and “Forum Cinemas Vingis” theatres in Vilnius. The Oscar award winning Milk with Sean Penn will be shown twice in Vilnius to give the cineastes more opportunities to see the film.

2009 june 4 Sean Penn‘s role is full of exuberance and joy Jonathan Romney Funny, there must be something in the air in America: suddenly, there's exuberance where you wouldn't expect to find it. You don't often see a smile cracking the features of Sean Penn, who usually looks as if he's grappling with the very conscience of a nation. But in Milk, his face is creased with euphoric mischief throughout. And look at director Gus Van Sant. His last three films – Elephant, Last Days, Paranoid Park – were introspective, formalist essays on youth and sudden death. By contrast, Milk is convivial – about an energetic, articulate social creature – and brimming with political optimism. Like last week's inauguration ceremony, Milk is that rarity, a big affirmative American statement that you don't have to feel embarrassed about being carried along by.

2009 june 3 Frisco Bay Blues: 'Medicine for Melancholy' The first in a planned trilogy about San Francisco, writer/director Barry Jenkins' first feature-length film, Medicine for Melancholy, is a love/hate story. The movie opens with Micah (Wyatt Cenac) and Joanne (Tracey Heggins), hung over, in a stranger's bathroom, brushing their teeth with their fingers. The subsequent awkward post-one-night-stand breakfast is tempered by Joanne's distress over her infidelity to her boyfriend. She's beautiful, but she's callous. She's black, as is Micah, and living in a city where African-Americans make up about 7% of the population, and a rise in gentrification is forcing out those who make less than $100,000 a year; Micah is desperate to latch onto what he thinks is the heart of his identity.

2009 may 28 “The Pleasure of Being Robbed” Director Josh Safdie Eric Kohn Josh Safdie doesn’t look like the kind of guy who would make an advertisement. Hiding behind an untrimmed beard while discussing his abstract cinematic ambitions, the twenty-four-year-old filmmaker radiates an endearing scrappy artist vibe. However, Safdie’s first feature, a surreal romp called “The Pleasure of Being Robbed” that opens this week at the IFC Center and becomes available through the company’s video-on-demand service later this month, originally took root as a commercial.

2009 may 26 Barry Jenkins, director of “Medicine for Melancholy”: “If ever we desire to do something, fuck it: all if we have to do is take that first step and do it” I was living in the attic of James Laxton’s parents’ house, paying “rent” in the form of writing after a two-year stint in Los Angeles feigning the pursuit of a Hollywood career. It had been three years since I’d completed my last short at Florida State, and as someone who made ten bucks an hour opening boxes at five thirty in the AM, the loss of this relationship brought me face to face with reality: I had reached a dead end.

2009 may 21 Too long to wait for Kaunas International Film Festival? Redux: Independent American Film Cycle is what you should look for in cinemas! In June Kaunas International Film Festival presents a film programme called “Redux: Independent American Film Cycle” in Kaunas and Vilnius. The program will be screened on June 3-5 in Kaunas, Forum Cinemas and on June 5-7 in Vilnius, Skalvija film center and Forum Cinemas. We asked Kaunas film festival programme producer Tomas Tengmark a couple of questions.

2009 may 21 Unexplored American films on the first days of summer Lithuanian film audiences that are convinced that American films start with action thrillers and end with romantic comedies will be surprised. In the beginning of June, our theatres will host unexplored American independent films.

2009 may 7 Independent American film cycle in June The organisers of the Kaunas International Film Festival present an exclusive program of independent American cinema “Redux: Independent American Film Cycle”, which gives an opportunity to take a look at the rich American film culture reaching much further than the Hollywood film production which has been filling the Lithuanian cinemas.

2008 september 27 Woody Allen and the other films will be telling stories in Kaunas Yesterday was the start of the Kaunas International Film Festival (KIFF), which would present Woody Allen’s new film Vicki, Christina, Barcelona, with a star-studded cast, to the Lithuanian audience for the first time.

2008 september 18 The Rolling Stones are coming to Kaunas The second Kaunas International Film Festival (KIFF) in their unique program “Music which is changing the world” will present world-renowned films about really well-known musicians and music phenomena. The Berlin International Film Festival 2008 is also opening with a film about the legendary group The Rolling Stones, the best film about the time of the ABBA obsession, the Swedish foursome; and of course Damon Albarn’s mystical project Gorillaz and the film Bananaz, which reveals the origin of this group.

2008 september 9 Kaunas International Film Festival, October 9 -20 The second Kaunas International Film Festival begins on October 9 in Kaunas. This year the festival has grown bigger – more films, more programmes, and more cinema auditoria. From October 9-20 cinema lovers will be able to see more than 40 films in four auditoria in two cities.

2007 september 19 Fatih Akin: It’s easier to hate someone than to love them ...I’m fascinated by human relationships.Not just boy meets girl or in a sexual sense, but also between parents and children. All human relationships. I believe that all the wars in the world are the result of not using love in the way thathumanity should. I think evil is the product of laziness...

2007 september 18 "Farväl Falkenberg could be the soundtrack to rural anywhere, but it's not The album from Stockholm-based composer, Erik Enocksson, has all the ingredients of eerie, woodland-influenced sounds (see: chiming bells, heavy organ use, perpetual dusk) as well as enough ethereal vocals to bring rustic porch culture to anyone's mind. That being said, it is also an album with an undeniable sense of "home".