Henrikas Šablevičius

At the beginning of the 1960s, when the French pioneers of cinéma vérité set out to achieve a new realism, and when direct cinema in Québec began to vie for notice, the Baltics wit-nessed the birth of a generation of documentarists who favored a more romantic view of the world around them. This meditative documentary essay – from a Latvian writer and Lithuanian director whose composed touch has long dovetailed with the stylistically diverse works of the Baltic New Wave – pushes adroitly past the limits of the common his-toriographic investigation to create a portrait of less-clearly remembered filmmakers. The result is a consummate poetic treatment of the ontology of documentary creation. Also a cinematic poem about cinema poets.

Based on the novel of the same name by Raimondas Kašauskas, about a strange man who is restless, who wants to live differently from everyone else, to play life.

Four different stories about young kids' destinies in different time periods in Lithuania.

Documentary film showing authentic Lithuanian traditions & rituals during major seasonal festivals: Winter solstice, Mardi Gras, Easter, Midsummer.

A film about Jonas Kaušpadas, a teacher at the Eight-year-old school of the Viru district of Estonia, who came to Estonia to get acquainted with Estonian culture, bring Lithuanian and Estonian people closer together.

When Henrikas Šablevičius started filming Lithuanian “oddballs” – a professor, a fortune teller, racers, and many others who fell short of the concept of the “model citizen” – he invented a bizarre new genre of documentary biopic. Characteristic of these portraits is a sense of mocking irony directed not at their subjects (on the contrary, the filmmaker’s affection for them is palpable) but at the “Soviet hero” genre. The subject of this film is Apolinaras, a kindhearted policeman who even outwardly looks very unlike the ideological “guardian of morals.”.

A film about circus veterans. The main characters of the film are Barnabas, a power juggler, Jonas Ramanauskas, a folk artist of the LSSR, and Jadvyga Stankutė-Ramanauskienė, an acrobat. Both are long retired, but even in their cosy homes, their memories of the circus do not leave them, so the film recalls the interesting and sad history of Lithuanian circus.

A surrealist etude that doesn’t have a clear narrative, and is courageous in its form, unusual in the context of Lithuanian cinema at the time.

Glastnost and Lithuania’s eventual independence from the USSR open up the possibility of examining previously banned subjects: death, postwar resistance and – as in We Were at Our Own Field – the damage done by the Soviet occupation and the simple longing for home.

About the folklore ensemble of elderly village singers.

Original folk craftsmen-sculptors who are united by the traditional, wood carving craft that came from centuries old.

A film about Stasys Brundza, the winner of the Tour d'Europe, who managed to break into the wide world behind the Iron Curtain through sport.

The film’s protagonist, P. Pūras, has dedicated his life to working diligently at the Žiežmariai clinic. He is not a doctor, yet the institution’s daily operations would be unimaginable without him—he is a jack-of-all-trades: driver, electrician, plumber. He performs every task willingly and joyfully, never engaging in conflict with others or himself, never questioning whether helping someone will bring him any benefit. He simply works, and that brings him satisfaction. Šablevičius portrays a man who maintains his optimism and inner clarity in any situation.

A memory capsule of the Academy as it is to us - skipping lectures, partying and discovering deep connections with fellow students.

A documentary to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Faculty of Film and Television.

A short movie about a summer adventures of a boy and his dog illustrated with a lot of documentary scenes about a life of a children in Lithuania during sixties.

This film details the dismantling of the old railway Siaurukas in Lithuania and the construction of its new modern replacement. The old railway and the new railway become the symbol of the clash between the archaic rural Lithuania and Soviet industrialization. The film was often considered as an expression of the archetypes of Lithuanian character.

Lithuanian documentary about bicycles.

Harlequin wanders through the night streets of old Vilnius, searching for friendship and human warmth.

A story about the poet Vytautas Mačernis (1921-1944)