The Fifth Annual New York Baltic Film Festival (NYBFF) presented by Scandinavia House: The Nordic Center in America returns in 2022 as a hybrid festival with both in-person and virtual screenings on November 2-13! From November 2 through 6, in-person screenings and events will take place at Scandinavia House in New York, presented in accordance with new COVID-19 safety guidance and protocols. Following the success of last year’s festival, the online version will once again be available to viewers all across the U.S. via the Elevent streaming platform November 4-13.

On November 5, see Burial (Kapinynas, dir. Emilija Škarnulytė, Lithuania/Norway, 2022, Documentary). A python slithers and curls over the abandoned control room of “Chernobyl’s Big Sister” — the decommissioned Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant in Lithuania — interpreting the plant’s radioactive core as an unleashed monster, one that will slither through time for millions of years. From Etruscan ruins and sunken cities to the most modern of underground repositories, artist and director Emilija Škarnulytė examines different ways in which humanity has attempted to bury the immortal. Burial is a gentle meditation on nuclear waste that examines burial traditions, and material and ritual heredity as it traces fresh and old scars that have been left on our geographical and cultural landscapes.

Tickets to this event must be purchased in advance online at the link above; film screenings will take place in Victor Borge Hall.

Virtual screenings of this film will take place from November 6-13. To read more and purchase virtual passes, please click here.

”Škarnulytė has her own personal angle on the nuclear dilemma and displays it in a powerfully visceral way in the closing sequences, this time opting for imagination over technical perfection.” (Cineuropa)

About the Director

Emilija Škarnulytė is an artist and filmmaker. Working between documentary and the imaginary, Škarnulytė makes films and immersive installations exploring deep time and invisible structures, from the cosmic and geologic to the ecological and political. She is the winner of the 2019 Future Generation Art Prize and represented Lithuania at the XXII Triennale di Milano. Recent solo exhibitions include Tate Modern (2021), Kunsthaus Pasquart (2021), and the National Gallery in Vilnius (2021).

Her films are in the IFA, Kadist Foundation and Centre Pompidou collections and have been screened at the Serpentine Gallery, MoMA in New York, and numerous film festivals. She is a founder and co-director of Polar Film Lab, and a member of artist duo New Mineral Collective.

About the NYBFF

Established in 2018, the New York Baltic Film Festival is presented and organized by Scandinavia House in collaboration with the Consulate General of Estonia, Consulate General of Lithuania, and Daris Delins, former Honorary Consul for Latvia in New York and founder of the festival.

Financial support for the festival comes from the Estonian Film Institute, National Film Center of Latvia, Lithuanian Film Center, and the Edhard Corporation with additional sponsorship by the Estonian American National Council, Lithuanian Culture Institute, Lithuanian Foundation, Consulate General of Estonia in New York, Embassy of Latvia in Washington D.C., Permanent Mission of Latvia to the U.N. in New York, Consulate General of Lithuania in New York, American Latvian Association, Investment and Development Agency of Latvia, the PBLA Culture Fund, and Sondra Litvaitytė.

ORGANIZERS & SPONSORS