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 (dir. Aistė Stonytė, Lithuania, 2024).

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 Huntrevisits 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.

This film will also screen virtually from November 10-17.

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