Giedrius Puskunigis

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.

Felix, a 12-year-old boy from outer space, during the summer holidays gets admitted into a summer children's sports camp. Few people know in the camp that Felix is not there by chance, and a few days ago he was created in a school laboratory because a space intellect sent him as an agent to planet earth to study humans. He is assisted by an ordinary boy Boris and a teacher who explains Felix local traditions and customs.

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.

Man at the gates of eternity. Water flows form a small pitcher. The Jordan River immerses death and it immerses life. A small oil - cross on the forehead of a new - born, the scent of God, a candle lit to show the road even when the night is at its darkest. A film about the unseen miracle of Baptism and the inexplicable touch of God.

Sorrow does not come merely from contemplating death, which forces us to look into Eternity, but also from life, which compels us to confront Time", wrote Russian philosopher Nikolai Berdyayev. Renowned Lithuanian documentarist Audrius Stonys took these words as a motto for his latest film, a meditative visual essay which portrays old people undertaking all kinds of activities, meditation and group laughter therapy. Without a single word of commentary, he creates from sophisticated, aesthetic images a compelling study of human corporeality which, in an ideal union with spiritual equilibrium, can sustain us with the pledge that old age doesn't have to be a painful wait for the last breath.

“The Mammoth Hunt” is a story about a film reel that for many years has been thought to be lost. On the reel, under conspiracy conditions, an abolished anti-Soviet theatre performance had been documented nearly 50 years ago – a play that served as a cross-section of the period revealing the universal subjects of courage, conformation, loyalty and betrayal.

The Golden Moose restaurant was a Turku legend. An old-fashioned funky establishment, opened in 1968 and seemingly never having changed since then. A meeting place for friends and family. A shrine for hundreds of locals. A place many called home. A family – for those who served there, as well as those being served. Now, in December 2016, the building has been bought by a major Finnish retail corporation in order to open a new supermarket, and the restaurant has to close its doors forever…

Being an adult is hard. It's especially hard when you’re only fifteen. Danutė is the only "adult" in her family. Clearly, that’s far too complex a role for a teenager. Every day, she faces external limitations that restrict her potential. A child like that measures everything through the lens of survival and takes on responsibility as her only form of protection.