The Field of Magic

A musician on his way to meet a fellow fiddler, encounters two girls and is taken aback by their talks about afterlife. The musicians walk towards a village observing events, unable to discern phantasy from reality. Later, both men attend a funeral, where archaic rituals intertwine with the practice of marrying a dead girl to an ‘afterlife groom’.

A poetic and atypical nature film about the various inhabitants of an old-growth forest, on the ground, in the air and in the water. There's no commentary, only the rich, almost palpable sounds of the forest and the magical situations captured by the camera. Although we might sometimes be puzzled as to what's actually happening a mating ritual or the start of a fight? the lack of explanation leaves space for us to associate freely and simply experience the images. The film offers a close-up view of a wide range of creatures such as the insect that appears out of the melting snow, gradually begins to move and impatiently waits until all its legs are free so it can fly away. The scale of the portraits is sometimes grand and at other times modest, but always filmed with precision, whether in daylight or at night. Time doesn't seem to matter in this extraordinary piece of slow cinema.

Once a year, a quiet and secluded village in the north-western part of Lithuania comes alive to celebrate Catholic Easter, doing its best to preserve the vanishing ancient tradition of the Guardians of the Cross. With gentle humor observing the preparations of the local community for the vigil and immersing the audience in Easter night, the filmmakers raise questions about the relationship between the sacred and profane in the modern world.