Please join the Baltic Studies Program of the Yale MacMillan Center to a showcase screening of the 2021 film Mr. Landsbergis directed by Sergei Loznitsa. With introductions by Ambassador Rytis Paulauskas, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Lithuania to the United Nations and Jogilė Ulinskaitė, Associate Research Scholar in Baltic Studies, Yale University
Register to Attend: https://bit.ly/YaleBaltic-EventRegistration
Location: HQ, Rm L01, 320 York St.
Dir. Sergei Loznitsa. 2021, 246 mins. In Lithuanian and Russian with English subtitles.
The latest documentary from the indefatigable Loznitsa is a masterwork of archival storytelling, grippingly and exhaustively detailing the Lithuanian fight for nationhood during the crucial years of 1989–1991, threaded together by interviews with the first Head of the Lithuanian Parliament, the now 89-year-old Vytautas Landsbergis. Rather than overly summarize history for the sake of economy, or play fast and loose with context (as another filmmaker might), Loznitsa orients the viewer within major moments in the establishment of the Lithuanian state—and the inverse dissolution of the Soviet one—with astonishing deftness and drama. So thoroughly are these events sourced that we’re given multiple angles on unchoreographed, often chaotic events such as citizen uprisings and military incursions. Even considering the director’s formidable work in the genre, this is a landmark achievement in archival filmmaking.
Watch trailer: https://vimeo.com/648021496