Mantas Kvedaravičius
Directing
Biography
Mantas Kvedaravičius (23 June 1976 – 30 March 2022; Biržai, Lithuanian SSR) was a Lithuanian filmmaker, documentary director, anthropologist and archaeologist known for war reporting in hostile areas. Mantas Kvedaravičius was killed on 30 March 2022 during the Siege of Mariupol (Russo-Ukrainian War). Kvedaravičius held a PhD in social anthropology from the University of Cambridge, and was an associate professor at Vilnius University. His doctoral thesis concerns "Knots of absence: death, dreams, and disappearances at the limits of law in the counter-terrorism zone of Chechnya" (Cambridge University, 2012). War-torn Chechnya, one of the republics of the Russian Federation, is also the setting of his 2011 documentary film, Barzakh ("Limbo"). His next documentary film, published in 2016, focuses on the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, which in the years 2014–15 had come under the attacks of separatist troops. In 2019, Kvedaravičius's first feature film appeared, Partenonas (Parthenon), set in Athens, Odessa, and Istanbul. Based on several years of ethnographic research, it is a movie about the enigmatic workings of memory. In arresting, often disconnected images, the pivotal character revives various lives he may have lived. "Memories betray him, but he knows for sure that in one of these lives, he will be killed." Working on yet another Mariupol documentary, Mantas Kvedaravičius was killed on 30 March 2022 during the Siege of Mariupol. Lyudmyla Denisova, Ukraine's ombudsperson for human rights, alleged that Kvedaravičius "was taken prisoner by 'rashists', who later shot him. The occupiers threw the director's body out into the street". Kvedaravičius's friend, Hanna Bilobrova, reported that two days after his death, a Russian soldier had led her to his body. She said that he had been shot in the stomach, but there was "no blood on the ground" and no bullet hole in the clothes he was wearing. Bilobrova, who brought his body home to Lithuania, has completed his Mariupolis 2 film.
Known For
The city of Mariupolis is by the Azov sea. It is also on the river Kalmius. Most of the city’s residents, half a million according to the last census, are working for the steel factory and do fishing, for leisure or food, in between shifts. The orthodox church towers above the city and its newly build bronze domes are sitting next to it, waiting to be donned. A tent near by is sheltering a crying icon, which receives a steady flow of visitors.
Mariupolis
In a cheap brothel at the foothills of an Athenian fortress, a man recounts the magnificent events of his life. His search for love and glory is retold and relived by many: a prostitute with an unredeemable past, a gangster haunted by bad luck, an icon painter who has no faith - In one of the stories, the man finds his riches, in another he becomes a vagabond prophet, in yet another he returns home to his wife. Memories betray him, but he knows for sure that in one of these lives, he will be killed.
Parthenon
A lone writer from Sudan imagines his journey across the landscape of once glorious Greece. He encounters seventeen dogs, an abandoned textile factory, and unexpected hospitality of an old woman. His return home is marked by the incredible; he is no longer a mad wanderer, but a prophet to be.
Prologos
In 2022, Mantas Kvedaravičius went back to Ukraine, Mariupol, at the heart of the war, to be with the people he had met and filmed in 2015. Following his death, his producers and collaborators have put all their strength into continuing transmitting his work, his vision and his films. Also a PhD in anthropology, Mantas Kvedaravičius wished to testify as a filmmaker as far as possible from the agitation of the media and the politicians. With huge force and sensitivity, Mariupolis 2 depicts life as it continues amidst the bombing and reveals images that convey both tragedy and hope.
Mariupolis 2
Kaunas, Lithuania, 1941, Lithuanian activist Andrius Gluosnis kills a Jew Isaac in Lietukio garage massacre. Years after the incident Gluosnis is haunted by the guilt.
Isaac
In a Chechen city recovering after the war, a man disappears. As daily life goes on, those in search are drawn into a world where encounters with diviners and legal advisors, with the torturers and the tortured, with secret prisons and mythical lakes all become commonplace.