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! This year’s lineup includes a Short Films Session with screenings of six short films, two from each of the Baltic countries.
PROGRAM
On Weary Wings Go By (Linnud läinud) | Dir. Anu-Laura Tuttelberg, Estonia & Lithuania, 2024 | 11 min. | No dialogue
New York Premiere
In this wintery poem of Nordic nature, the sun moves low, and days shorten. Birds fly south, and porcelain animals and insects hide from the freezing wind and snow. Only a small porcelain girl wanders the abandoned landscape, with no way to get out.
Ootid (Ootidė) | Dir. Eglė Razumaitė, Lithuania & France, 2024 | 9 min. | In Lithuanian with English subtitles
U.S. Premiere
Girls at summer camp raise different versions of what happened to one of their friends who had to leave the camp and go home.
The One Who Knows | Dir. Eglė Davidavičė, Lithuania & France, 2024 | 12 min. | No dialogue
North America Premiere
Anxious teenager Ūla is taken on an unexpected adventure during swimming practice, in which she grows up and learns to see her body anew.
Blank Page Syndrome (Baltās lapas bieds) | Dir. Jānis Ābele & Toms Šķēle, Latvia, 2024 | 8 min. | In Latvian with English subtitles
North American Premiere
In a world where printing machines spits out books relentlessly, a contrasting reality exists – amidst the noise of the city, a writer battles with despair, struggling to find words in front of a blank page.
The Weight of Light | Dir. Anna Hints, Estonia, 2024 | 20 min. | In Hindi with English subtitles
U.S. Premiere
Surya, a teenage ragpicker, finds a camera on a huge garbage mountain in Delhi. The camera becomes her window to the untold stories of women surrounding her. Blending documentary and fiction, The Weight of Light focuses on a community of garbage collectors who try to find their place in the world amidst garbage and scorching heat.
Sacrificial Lamb (Upurjērs) | Dir. Uġis Olte, Latvia, 2024 | 18 min. | In Latvian with English subtitles
New York Premiere
Moving to the countryside has not given Ildze the expected harmony. The child has been ill, her husband is frequently absent from home, and the inevitable closeness of robust Nature is like a sharp stone that presses the thin ice of her consciousness. No doubt it will break. The question is — how? And — what is at the bottom?
ABOUT THE DIRECTORS
Lithuanian born director and animator Eglė Davidavičė (The One Who Knows) began making short films at Skalvija Film Academy and continued her animation studies at Vilnius Academy of Arts which she graduated in 2019. Both of her student films were nominated for the Best Student Film award by the Lithuanian Film Academy. Her first produced film, The One Who Knows, has just been completed.
Eglė Razumaitė (Ootid) earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy in 2016 from Vilnius University and holds a master’s degree in film directing from Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre. In 2017 she participated in an alternative contemporary art education program at Rupert Art Center. Eglė has worked for Lithuanian Culture Research Institute, Department of Sacral Art Heritage since 2017. Together with Vytautas Juozėnas, Brigita Kazlauskaitė and Kipras Dubauskas she founded an analog moving image lab Spongė. Egle’s work balances between the humanitarian profile studies in interdisciplinary art and filmmaking by integrating hybrid forms of cinematic language. She is mostly concerned with themes of attachment and detachment, perception of women and transwomen in contemporary culture, dialectics of inclusion and exclusion to the centers of power as well as social groups.
Anu-Laura Tuttelberg (On Weary Wings Go By) graduated from the Estonian Academy of Arts in 2013 with an MA in Animation, specializing in stop-motion. Her graduation film Fly Mill won 20 prizes globally. Her first post-graduation film, On The Other Side Of The Woods, premiered at the Annecy International Animation Festival and won 12 awards across 85 festivals. Winter in the Rainforest, the first in her nature trilogy, premiered at Annecy in 2019, winning 13 festival prizes and the Estonian Cultural Endowment Award. Anu-Laura won the 2022 Estonian Film and TV Award for Best Production Design. She teaches animation at her alma mater.
Jānis Ābele (Blank Page Syndrome) won the Grand Prix at 33rd International ISFF “Tous Courts” with his graduation film Six feet above (2015). The director’s second feature, Jelgava ’94, received four national film awards, including the Best Director, and also became the first Latvian fiction film to be available on Netflix. In 2022, his film 81 Meters received a national film prize for best short documentary. In 2024, Blank Page Syndrome‘ premiered at Krakow FF and the director’s first feature-length documentary The Last Will, will be released in 2025.
Toms Šķēle (Blank Page Syndrome) is a cinematographer and filmmaker based in Riga, Latvia and holds and Fine Arts MA in Cinematography. He has shot documentary and fiction projects in Latvia, Estonia, Serbia, Ireland, Hungary, France, Italy and USA. The third feature film shot by Toms will be released in 2024. Since 2019 he’s directed music videos. His director’s debut short film was released in 2023, and the essay short documentary Blank Page premieres in 2024.
Uģis Olte (Sacrificial Lamb) is a Latvian editor and director of documentaries and music videos. Since 2008 he has created and directed television programs, award-winning music videos, and also four short fiction films The Red Spot, KK2678, Snooze, and King Of The Wild Things. Olte has also directed three feature length documentaries: Stuck in Stikine (2007), Double Aliens (2015) and Liberation Day (2016, co-directed with Morten Traavik). His first fiction feature, a mythological thriller Upurga was released in 2022.
Anna Hints (The Weight of Light) is an Estonian film director with a background in contemporary art and folk music. Anna’s debut feature documentary Smoke Sauna Sisterhood (NYBFF 2023) won Directing Award at Sundance Film Festival and European Film Award for Best Documentary in 2023. It was the Estonian National Entry at 96th Academy Awards, has been sold to 33 territories and nominated to numerous awards winning so far 32. Anna belongs to music group EETER that collaborated with composer Eðvarð Egilsson for Smoke Sauna Sisterhood.
