Few of Us 1996
A slow, dialogue-free film about a woman's journey in Siberia.
A slow, dialogue-free film about a woman's journey in Siberia.
Rokas and Inga, a couple of young Lithuanians, volunteer to drive a cargo van of humanitarian aid to Ukraine. They cross the vast snowy lands of the Donbass region, drifting into the lives of those affected by the war.
The film is a day in the life that passes by, even if it seems neverending. In the morning the streets are alive with people, pedestrians and cars, with loud and exultant noise. Such sounds accompany the restless walk of a woman and her child across a dusty street, while Bartas’ gaze wanders through many different perspectives.
A drug smuggler is betrayed by his partner and is then forced to seek help from Russian mobsters.
The atmosphere of a corridor between yesterday and tomorrow, where many doors open into the unknown. A series of faces, gestures and images both real and imagined time. A fragmentary narrative without dialogue depicting several people in Vilnius.
Two young men leave a neglected but cozy native nook for a strange seaport town Kenigsberg. There they meet two girls the outsiders like themselves. Any attempt to find a normal human contact leads to misunderstanding. Or perhaps they are also lonely and unhappy. The realities, provoking a forced individualism melt in the atmosphere of the town, on which there lies a seal of historical and human cataclysms.
Lithuania, 1948. War is over, but the country is left in ruins. 19-year-old Untė is a member of the Partisan movement resisting Soviet occupation. They do not fight on equal terms, but this desperate struggle will determine the future of the whole population. At the age of discovery of life, Untė discovers violence and treachery. The lines are blurred between the burning passion of his youth and the cause for which he is fighting. He will invest himself wholeheartedly, even if it means losing his innocence…
On a summer day, a man, his daughter and his companion arrive at their country house to spend the weekend. The daughter has just moved in with her father, whose attention she desires. The man is tired of his life, and does not know where to find the strength to carry on living. The woman, a violinist, is confused in her priorities - music, love or career. Despite the fact that the man and the woman love each other, their tense relationship is on the brink of collapse.
An isolated village in the Lithuanian countryside. Seated in her house, an elderly woman recites an old folk story. Then she climbs up the tall ladder that takes her to the rooftop of the church.
A group of drop-outs, losers and criminals are travelling in a stolen Mercedes seemingly aimlessly along numerous derelict houses and impassable roads to eventually end up on an old decaying state farm in Crimea, the southern tip of the former Soviet Union, where the mother, wife and daughter of one of them live. The men kill time with smoking, drinking and staring in front of them, but an undercurrent tension is brewing. On the last night they have a party that is equally destructive as their life
The film springs from at least three ideas connected to each other in an irrational way: the story of a cow being taken to the butcher, the description of simple pleasures, how to ascend to the top of a hill and descend in a wheelbarrow, and the portraiture of a several blind people. The great, big eyes of the cows are seen in contrast to the unseeing eyes of the blind people.
In the spring of 1989, the planting of the oak tree grove of Lithuanian national revival was started in the birthplace of Jonas Basanavičius in the village of Ožkabaliai. Thousands of people from all over Lithuania came to the planting, carrying seedlings and Lithuania's tricolours.
The first autumn snow is falling. At the same time a man passes away. Death comes with the beginning of winter.
With this film a cinematographer Rimvydas Leipus made a debut as a documentary film director. By casting its gaze to the periphery of Vilnius, Užupis, the film follows the tradition of the first generation of independent filmmakers. The result is the mute portrayal of a furnace caretaker Jonas Valeiša and a graphic artist Šarūnas Leonavičius.