VILNIUS. The Swedish production company Nice Drama, in coproduction with UK-based Twelve Town and with support from Nordisk Film & TV Fond, are shooting the eight-part action thriller With One Eye Open / Neprarask budrumo in Lithuania.

VILNIUS: Laimonas Ubavičius, the Chancellor of the Ministry of Culture, has been apppointed as the new head of the Lithuanian Film Centre for the next five years. Starting November 2020 he will replace Rolandas Kvietkauskas, who has been managing the Lithuanian Film Center since 2012.

VILNIUS: Lithuania’s Čiobreliai/M-Films is coproducing Juanjo‘s Gimenez debut feature Three / Tres, which will start shooting in Spain in September 2020. The film is a Spanish/French/Lithuanian coproduction. Juanjo Gimenez won the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival with his short film Timecode (2016).

VILNIUS: The Lithuanian Film Centre has distributed 2,515,685 EUR at its second session of financing for 2020. In all, 59 projects received funding for production and development. The government has allocated 1,861,695 EUR for the production of 31 films, including three feature films, five documentaries, 14 short films and five minority coproductions.

The following grants were announced by the Lithuanian Film Centre on 22 July 2020.

VILNIUS: Lithuania saw the first reopening of a cinema on 5 June 2020, with the Polish-owned multiplex Multikino, which has seven screens with 1,673 seats. The move comes as the Lithuanian government has begun to gradually ease the restrictions on public and economic life, with public events of limited size allowed as of 1 June.

VILNIUS: The European Film Forum Scanorama 2020 has announced that it will proceed as scheduled and opened its call for submissions. The festival will take place 5-22 November 2020.

VILNIUS: An analysis of the impact of the Lithuanian tax incentives shows that five films have benefited from the Lithuanian Film Tax Incentive in 2020, despite the COVID-19 crisis. They include three Lithuanian films and two foreign productions. Investments for film production were granted to 21 local companies in the amount of 1.25 m EUR.

VILNIUS: Lithuanian cinemas are expected to lose 8 m EUR in ticket sales and another 4 m in additional income in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 crisis, according to an evaluation of the long-term effects of the virus on cinema operators, conducted by the law firm Sorainen at the request of the Lithuanian Film Centre.

VILNIUS: Lithuanian director Giedre Zickyte is currently in preproduction with a new documentary MASHA / Maša. Main photography will take place in the autumn of 2020.