Best Lithuanian drama movies

Lithuanian provincial town is facing the economic crisis in 2008. Vytas gets fired from the factory. Pushed by his wife, he immediately starts looking for a new job, but not really successfully. After having his haircut done, Vytas starts looking for a new love affair with a hairdresser Marija, but not really successfully, either. Finally, Vytas gets involved into a third search - he starts looking for a guy who posted video on youtube, claiming he saw Jesus Christ in their town. This is the only time he succeeds.

Seventeen-year-old Sangaile is fascinated by stunt planes. She meets a girl her age at the summer aeronautical show, nearby her parents' lakeside villa. Sangaile allows Auste to discover her most intimate secret and in the process finds in her teenage love, the only person that truly encourages her to fly.

Dancer Elena and sign language interpreter Dovydas meet and form a beautiful bond. As they dive into a new relationship, they must navigate how to build their own kind of intimacy.

On the verge of retirement, Commissioner Gintas must undertake the investigation of a series of heinous murders, a dangerous task that could expose the many dirty secrets of several prominent members of the social elite of a small Lithuanian town.

Dreaming of an escape from the bleakness of their hometown, two teens form a unique bond at a local modeling school, where the promise of a better life pushes girls to violate their bodies in increasingly extreme ways.

A psychology postgraduate student escorts two patients and their nurse to a seaside psychiatric clinic. Along their journey, they break through each other's barriers, delve into the sources of their various traumas, and discover the lasting imprints left on their fragile souls.

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.

Paramedic Vincentas is a passionate gambler, who is forced to make radical decisions to return the debts. An idea strikes Vincentas to create an illegal game related to his profession. Love, life and death will be at stake.

During the interwar period, a Lithuanian geography professor tries to convince the government to establish a backup state overseas, in order to save their country from ruin. However, the idea is mostly mocked and opposed. Still, there is hope in the secret support from the elderly prime minister, who has become disillusioned with politics.

A romance blooms between a noblewoman and a common man amid a peasant revolt against the brutal Russian army

Marius is a highly successful lawyer based in Vilnius. He becomes obsessed with Ali, a handsome Syrian refugee he first encounters in an online chatroom run out of Belgrade. Marius is rich and enjoys a vibrant social and cultural life. Nevertheless, he feels that something is missing from it. The journey from Lithuania to Serbia is a relatively short one, but can the two navigate their way through the gulf that separates their very different lives? And how do they deal with the precarious obstacles of the physical borders that stand between them? Written and directed by Romas Zabarauskas, The Lawyer questions assumptions about what it means to be an immigrant and the possibilities offered by life in contemporary Europe.

Early years of Lithuanian independence from the soviets. Rebellious, weak hearted, but strong willed boy Saulius arrives at a youth sanatorium where he meets some charismatic friends, fights for the love of his life and gets some valuable life lessons from his coach.

Fake life bursts like a bubble when Donatas receives a phone call from his rich and powerful father.

A servant is working for his three masters.

About betrayal and revenge. A loving couple in the woods is suddenly caught by a runaway thief and his two companions. Some of the weird five will have to start a new life, some will stay in the dark woods forever.

Radio Free Europe, BBC, and Voice of America can only rarely get through the Iron Curtain and Soviet mufflers to Lithuania, a country torn by a war between the local resistance movement and the Soviet regime that is forced onto Lithuanian people by bayonets of the Russian army. Everybody who tries to resist the Soviet rule is either terrorized or executed or exiled to Siberia. He is one of the local high-school students who witness the local armed resistance to the Soviet occupation and ultimately decide to join it by taking a gun into their hands. He collects documents and all possible kinds of evidence that prove daunting crimes of the Kremlin. He soon becomes a legend among his peers. To girls, he is John Wayne the Hollywood Icon. Guys see him as an insurmountable obstacle and an invincible rival in matters of love.

A feature film "Emigrants" is like a protest against the most painful current process in Lithuania - emigration. "Emigrants" encloses a tragic, but filled with light humour and irony story of one Lithuanian family.

The singer called Punk is no longer of much interest to anyone. After his brush with fame, it only took a few years of drugs and alcohol to reach rock bottom. After yet another small town concert, Punk ends up spending the night backstage, drunk and alone. When he opens his eyes in the morning, he sees a little girl, who introduces herself as his daughter. Two lost souls set out on a trip together – a trip which will not only change their lives, but will also bring them together to appreciate the joy it brings.

The film is based on the novel by Romualdas Granauskas, winner of the Lithuanian National Cultural and Arts Award, and is the chronicle of a young man’s shifting relationships as he adjusts rather dramatically to the unfamiliarity of freedom. The film will be shown in Lithuanian with English subtitles. Duburys won the Silver Crane Award in Lithuania. It has been selected as Lithuania’s entry for this year’s Oscar nomination in the foreign language film category. Duburys was entered in the Montreal World Film Festival, Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival and has been invited to Cairo International Film Festival and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Soviet eighties. A little town in the periphery. After his parents' divorce, 11-year-old Rolanas and his dad move in next door to same-aged Emilija. Friendship is born between the kids, however, shyness or fear of opening up makes them communicate through the wall, sitting in their own balconies, or through a socket connecting their flats. Emilija's parents also appear to be on the verge of divorce. The children discover common topics, activities. Unfortunately, a nearly tragic accident prevents Emilija to go to the balcony. This encourages both children to set out for a "real" date.

Following a traumatic experience, Gaile, a speech therapist, is incapable of feeling any emotion. However, while preparing a video presentation for a scientific conference, she sees herself on screen and is surprised to find suppressed sensations returning to her, primarily feelings of aggression. Gaile decides to try an experiment. With the help of a man and his video camera she stages various provoking situations and shows the result to those involved. Throughout the experience she is unable to perceive the value of normal emotions, or even the possibility that someone may have feelings for her

The film portrays Lukša's attempts, in trips to western Europe, to gain support for the armed anti-Soviet resistance (known as the Forest Brothers), whose fortunes in a guerrilla war against Soviet authorities were waning, largely due to widespread infiltration and harsh crackdowns by the NKVD.

The story about one man - an artist and an intellectual - who was imprisoned by two brutal regimes, the Nazis and the Soviets. 'The Professor' is a man who lives by his own personal version of the Ten Commandments. After miraculously surviving imprisonment in a Nazi concentration camp through a bit of ironic fate, he writes a memoir of his life, which becomes the target of the Soviet censors. The so-called "freedom" of Communism becomes just as oppressive as the German concentration camp.

It is highly probable that before their own death, everyone has to organise someone else’s funeral. This is by far not an easy task. In addition to the searing grief, dying also brings a number of tasks that are at once utterly alien and intensely time-critical. The main character of this film, Dovile, who unexpectedly has to bury her father, has to face the bedlam of exactly such a challenge. Overnight, the young girl has to become a skilful organiser of a family event, while also being a specialist on coffins, urns, wreaths and funeral feasts. Dovile’s journey towards organising a perfect funeral is inevitably full of hardship and mishaps, accompanied mainly by black humour and comical situations.

The year is 2000. Aleksandra, a young prosecutor, is handling a human trafficking case. She must conduct two interrogation sessions in one day. First, Aleksandra faces Andrius – a high-school friend turned suspect, who provokes and undermines her strategy, not leaving her any breathing space. During the second interrogation, she talks with Viktorija, the victim who has personal reasons to distrust law enforcement.

Soviet Lithuania in 1972. A young theatre actress is trying to make a difference and tell the forbidden story of repression in a play.

Lithuanian photographer, the legend of Soviet Sixties' generation Vitas Luckus tragically passed away in 1987. Yet the life and times of the talented rebel still impassion and lead us to a journey questioning why, at all times, we are wary of those who are really free.

A moving world of spirits and ghosts, condemned to brush against one another without really meeting since they have all emerged from a single perpetual dream: that of a young man who no longer wants to wake up, immersed as he is in this world of fascinating spectres.

After the National Performing Arts Awards, the bus of actors returns home: everyone was nominated, but no one won. The bus is filled with thank-you speeches, karaoke and champagne. As the actors are driving along, they suddenly see their colleagues' car on the side of the road.

A son picks his father up from a psychiatric hospital and takes him home to his grandparents. The father tries to revive their relationship, but the son, like the grandparents, is indifferent to him. They spend the day together.

Migle’s grandfather has been living in an apartment that is too big for him. Two sibling families decided to move him out. In order to please Migle, Eimantas comes to grandfather’s home to help family move all the furniture. But not everyone in the family is happy about his presence.

The sailor Audrius comes ashore for the last time in his life. The story unfolds through Audrius’ journey and his many encounters over the weekend as autumn turns to winter. He is driven by a severe lack of time. Inadequate actions and reactions make sense when we find out his secret: he’s dying of Leukemia. During his grandmother’s birthday in her countryside village, surrounded by his family and after reassuring his son, he makes a final attempt to find resolve and peace. Farewell is a moving universal tale, uplifting and heart warming, verbally laconic and visually rich. It is a clear-cut story of the human spirit, which is both relentless and immortal.

Miglė, who married when she was very young, has for 26 years been divorced from her ex-husband who one day calls her and asks for a favour. He has found that it would be a good time to get married again after the death of his mother. But there is a small problem: their divorce is valid only in the eyes of the law, because a Catholic marriage cannot be divorced. It can, however, be annulled. All that needs to be done is to complete an application and give the “Catholic court” a good reason. But she does not know in what kind of absurd situations she is about to find herself in.

A mentally ill young woman Valda convinces herself that a boy growing up in an orphanage is her child. Following the footsteps of a thousands Lithuanians, she immigrates to Ireland to earn money to save him. "Loss" portrays the beauty and tragedy of the human heart.

Based on true story of four friends who decided to take over the city. Giedrius is released after serving a long 12 year sentence for unlawful conduct he did with his friends while being a child.

It's a feature-length narrative film about a middle-class couple, that wants to adopt the perfect little girl, but they end up being offered a rebellious 12-year-old boy.

A road movie, buddy picture and romance rolled into one, Low Lights pivots on a love triangle that evolves when two men and a woman take to ritual night driving. Transforming cold urban space into something charged with excitement, the drives provide the hope the trio so desperately needs.

Egor is a vet at a training facility for hunting dogs in a remote region of the country. Surrounded by foxes, deer, badgers, and dogs, he lives in a small building next to the house of the facility's master. He treats the dogs, cleans the kennels, oversees the workers, and meets with clients and their dogs. It's easier for him to get along with dogs than with people. Egor is willing to take on any job to get closer to the facility's master and his near and dear. He wants the impossible - to become a member of that family.

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…

A newly appointed teacher arrives at a remote village school in 1947. The famous journalist and distinguished poet was downgraded for illegal publications and forbidden anti-Soviet verses. Suspicious locals still prefer to test his loyalties, while children wilingly recite his verses from 'To My Soviet Motherland', written under pressure to prase Uncle Lenin. Eventually, an unforgotten friend shows him a secret wintery path to the Dainava resistance platoon's underground bunker.

A slow, dialogue-free film about a woman's journey in Siberia.

Between 1944–1953, courageous resistance movement took place in the Baltic region of Europe, uniting the partisan troops for struggle against the Soviet Union. “The Invisible Front” was a coded name used by the Soviet Interior forces to describe the resistance movement in Lithuania. Film depicts the story of the fighters through the words and experience of the partisan leader, Juozas Luksa, and interviews with eyewitnesses of those events - both the partisans and the Soviet fighters. Tales of horror, torture and courage are told in the rare archival footage that has never been screened before, and interviews with the surviving members of the resistance movement.

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

Max goes on a date with another guy, Tadas, whom he met online. Max feels uncomfortable and timid so Tadas decides to act on his own initiative. He tries to get to know Max as they embark on a night ride around the city but Max is evasive to talk about himself. Max feels torn between his feelings and Tadas' pressure. Eventually he breaks down and reveals his true identity.

On the surface, Arnas, Davis, Kuisis and Robertas are ordinary, unremarkable guys, but they have a secret hobby - pretending to be Aras officers, punishing those who evade justice and helping those who need help the most. One day, things take an unexpected turn when, after a routine and successful "mission", the friends get caught up in a real-life robbery that ends tragically. Realising that they can't continue to deliver justice so easily, the foursome is faced with the difficult dilemma of whether to quit or to keep going and risk falling into the hands of the real cops.

This film tells a grotesque story of image design. "Diringas" is a mysterious term conceived by the main character, which becomes a product of unlimited possibilites. Everybody is convinced that image is everything - so everybody fights for if. Nobody knows what it is, it is only important that you have it.

The family of the famous artist Eve and pilot Thom starts to experience bizzare incidents after a stranger disappears in their cellar

A father, who unexpectedly gets custody of his teenage daughter, has a second chance to gain back her trust and rebuild their relationship.

6 years old Milda's parents have emigrated. One day, a strange woman convinces the girl that her parents have been kidnapped by the very Queen of England. The girl decides to head for the biggest rescue mission of her life.

A nearly-suicidal, young woman visits a psychotherapist. She is in love with a priest, and the diagnosis of her husband's mental illness leaves no hope. The psychotherapist, in her attempts to resolve the amassed difficulties, seemingly begins to duplicate the life stages and behavioral patterns of her patient. A script for this film is based on motifs from the best-seller, scandalous novel, Witch and Rain, by female author, Jurga Ivanauskaite. By choosing a priest as the main role for a love story, the author broke an existing societal taboo. Faith, Love and Hope form the trilogy by the authors of this screenplay. Love stands as the grandest of the three.

Shortly after the fall of the iron curtain, 12-year-old Kovas, travels to his mother, Viktorija’s homeland for the first time. It has been 20 years since Viktorija escaped the USSR and has now returned to reclaim her beloved family estate.

Rokas decides to take everything into his hands and starts new business project. Where love and money meets - there will be blood, that will paint coast red.

Two sisters, Grace and Violet, bound together by more than blood, live a reclusive life in a large mansion, detached from society and reality too. They have a plan. It's hardly conventional, but the outcome nine months later is all that counts. Whatever they do they must not fall in love with the man that they choose to ensnare. Set in contemporary New England.

Indre and Paulius haven't kept in touch lately; but as his foot is in a cast, she agrees to drive him out to a small town near the airport, where his brother and her boyfriend died.

1961. Father and daughter, separated during World War II, are trying to meet in Berlin. He comes to Berlin from Soviet Lithuania, she comes from the USA. Even if the Berlin Wall has not been built yet, the Cold War is coming close to its apogee. Political and geographical situation, that seemed to be favorable in the beginning, turns out to be deceptive. After his arrival, the father is looked after by KGB intelligence agents. They, using him as bait, are trying to lure the daughter to the east side. Affected by the citie's atmospehere that's pervated with distrust, she is afraid to cross the West Berlin boundary. Trying to save each other from the possible trap, father and daughter are ready to give up the idea of the so much desired meeting...

Monika's dream to play a one in a lifetime concert is cut short by her mother. However, she stops at nothing to pursue her dream.

A group of protesters, from all around Lithuania, gather at the Television Tower to protect it from approaching Soviet tanks and paratroopers.

Jonas (Dainius Kazlauskas) pretends to be blind and enters a TV dance contest, where he meets his attractive dance partner Saule (Paulina Taujanskaite). Soon they become the show's most popular contestants. While the whole nation thinks that Jonas is blind, Vytas (Darius Bagdziunas), an old acquaintance of Jonas, is released from prison. As reminders of the past keep creeping up on them, Vytas is suppressing contradictory feelings - to seek revenge or forgiveness in such a manipulative world - for sins that were and for sins to be made.

A grown-up son goes on a countryside trip with his ageing parents in the hopes of reigniting the relationship, but there is nothing left to reignite. This story of familial dysfunction is set against the picturesque backdrop of a dacha community (instantly recognisable to every post-Soviet native), rendered by Vytautas Katkas with irony and a rare sympathy for his hapless subjects.

Seneca’s Day is set in the year 1989, the final period of the Soviet era in Lithuania. Eighteen-year old buddies establish the Seneca’s Fellowship with the motto “Live each day as if it was your last”. A love triangle breaks up the fellowship right at the time the nation experiences an exceptional sense of community via Baltic Chain.Twenty-five years later, the main character who at first glance appears to be accompanied by good luck, is disillusioned with himself. He has betrayed the ideals of his youth and become a cold observer of life.

Monika, a middle-aged wealthy woman, goes through a marriage crisis with her younger husband Linas. A car accident leads Monika to meeting three young girls, Kristina, Egle and Gitana, who happen to be ex-prostitutes extradited from Germany. The lady and the girls settle down in a country mansion, to form a relationship that will change their lives forever

Close to bankruptcy, Irena, the owner of a struggling pig farm in a tiny post-Communist town, finds a surprising benefactor in a handsome American man who appears to be the answer to all her prayers.

Having lost their jobs due to a Soviet takeover of Lithuanian Television in 1991, its employees declare a hunger strike in protest. Initial enthusiasm is slowly replaced by frustration about a single question – how long can they hold physical and emotional hunger?

Seventeen-year-old Yasha is rebelling against authority. But in the USSR of 1990, some opposing forces are more dangerous than others. Determined not to give in, Yasha’s need for self-expression will propel him to the precipice of irreparable harm.

Algimantas Puipa directed this 1997 drama about a painter wrestling with childhood memories of his father being exiled to Siberia.

They only wanted to challenge the unjust government. But once they did...they had no way back. When Baltic states regain their independence from the Soviet Union, thousands of Russians living outside Russia find themselves cut off from their native land. Some of them return to Russia, others become naturalized citizens and go on with their lives in the new country. However, two Russian brothers, Kostya and Yura, are among those who do not want to return to Russia, nor to live under the new government. When brothers find out that they must leave the country or will be deported, they decide to challenge the government that they believe has violated their rights. The brothers capture a minivan full of passengers and demand a ransom of a million dollars as a compensation for the injustice inflicted upon them. According to their plan, none of the hostages will be hurt, however, as the brothers capture the minivan, the first blood spilled.