NEWS

2010 august 16 Šarūnas Bartas’ Eastern Drift will premiere in Kaunas Film Festival The 4th Kaunas International Film Festival will be opened with Eastern Drift (Indigène d'Eurasie) – the best Lithuanian film of 2010. The Lithuanian premiere of the latest film by Šarūnas Bartas will take place on October 1 in Kaunas. The film was first introduced in Berlin Film Festival and has already received critical acclaim in many countries including Lithuania. This spring, Eastern Drift won three Silver Cranes – Lithuanian national film awards. Klavdiya Korshunova was acknowledged the best actress, Šarūnas Bartas was titled the best director, and the film itself received the award of the best Lithuanian film 2010.

2010 august 3 Kaunas International Film Festival announces Silver Audience Award Quality movie channel “Silver” has become an official partner of Kaunas International Film Festival. This October, during the 4th edition of the festival, NonStop Television will establish the prize “Silver Audience Award”, where the festival audience in Kaunas will vote for their favourite film. The winning film will receive the “Silver Audience Award” cup and substantial marketing on NonStop Television’s channels. “Silver” is a channel for cineastes which puts the spotlight on much talked about and critically acclaimed films produced outside the Hollywood studios. Focusing on contemporary film and its creators‚ “Silver” continuously highlights new directors‚ actors and film genres‚ giving the viewers a feeling of a film festival in their living room. In Lithuania, Silver is available through TEO, among various other cable TV providers.

2010 june 16 Advertisement of Kaunas Film Festival awarded Creative solutions of TV, print and outdoor advertising of Kaunas International Film Festival were appreciated in the Lithuanian advertising festival “ADrenalinas”. The festival’s advertising campaign was designed by the creative partners of the festival – advertising agency Not Perfect, Dansu Production House, Kino Komanda and copywriter Antonio Bechtle. The festival’s TV clip was awarded silver in the category of TV and Cinema Commercials for Services. The festival’s print ads received a Silver Arrow, while outdoor advertisements were awarded bronze.

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.

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".