“Another Look – The Restored European Film Project” pays tribute to the endeavors of film archives across Europe, whose responsibility is to protect the audiovisual heritage of their respective countries. Under the aegis of the European Union, and in collaboration with local European embassies and cultural institutes, this project annually presents a selection of films, one from each of its participating nations, all in restored versions and high quality formats. Through these screenings, it hopes to raise awareness to both classic European cinema and the means by which it is preserved.
In 2017 festival offers films from France, Austria, Czech Republic, Poland, Spain, Portugal and Israel, whereas Lithuania is taking part for the first time. Moreover, this is the first project within the EUNIC cluster in Israel after Lithuania became its full member in November 2016 and joined the cohort of EU member states’ embassies and cultural institutes sponsoring the event. For the Lithuanian debut festival’s organizers have chosen Arūnas Žebriūnas “The Beauty”.
The film belongs to Lithuanian cinema classics. Its main hero is a little girl, sensitive and open to the surrounding world. The film explores the theme of external and inner beauty through her relationships with children from neighborhood and her mother. Poetic language of the film, its visual metaphors and associations reveal the necessity of inner resources as well as inner beauty of a human being – feelings, dreams, faith and memories. Moreover, the film possesses a lot of hints about the independence of Lithuania and its soviet occupation, the tension between soviet industrialization and historical memory. The film also stands out for the expressive camerawork and subtle performance of the main actor Inga Mickytė.
Israeli audiences will be introduced to the Lithuanian film classic by cinema critic and historian dr. Lina Kaminskaitė-Jančorienė – the initiator of the first film preservation project in the Baltic States “The Anthology of Lithuanian Documentary Cinema”.
All films are screened on January 12 – February 22 in all of the main Israeli cinematheques (Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, Herzilya and Holon).
Project is being implemented in collaboration with Lithuanian Culture Institute and Lithuanian Film Centre.
