The 7th Annual New York Baltic Film Festival (NYBFF) presented by Scandinavia House: The Nordic Center in America returns this November with the best new films from the Baltic region! On November 7, see an incredible story of creativity, bravery, and resistance in the documentary The Mammoth Hunt / Mamutų medžioklė, (dir. Aistė Stonytė, Lithuania, 2024). *The screening will be followed by a film talk with director Aistė Stonytė.*
In 1968 Lithuania, the collapse of the communist regime is still 21 years away — but dissent is already growing. That year, theater director Jonas Jurasas directs a scandalous, avant-garde, allegorical and thinly-veiled anti-Soviet production entitled “The Mammoth Hunt.” The performances play to packed houses, until word gets back to Moscow. Soon the play is condemned as anti-Soviet and abolished from the repertoire, leading Jarasas and his family to leave the country for Americato continue his career. But within its cancellation is another act of defiance — two months after its final performance, a closed cast locks themselves within the theater to film the play. Filmmaker Aistė Stonytė’s The Mammoth Hunt revisits the history of the production, gathering recollections from its surviving participants and attempting to track down the secretly recorded film. The documentary also following Jurasas’ new life in Sarasota, FL and his return to Lithuania in a post-Soviet world. In doing so, Stonytė tells an incredible story of creativity, bravery, and the life of a talented theater director.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Aistė Stonytė was born in Lithuania. She holds a BA in Journalism and an MA in Public Relations at Vilnius University and a second MA is in Directing at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre. She is currently studying for her PhD at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theater. Aistė has created over 300 portraits of the most famous Lithuanian cultural figures for the Lithuanian National Television. These series have won numerous awards for the best cultural series in Lithuania. In 2024, she released her first feature-length documentary, The Mammoth Hunt, which won the Silver Crane for Best Documentary at the Lithuanian National Film Awards.
