LT- Political Shift on the Screen: Post‐Communist Transformation in Lithuanian Film and Video

“Politinis lūžis ekrane: pokomuninė transformacija Lietuvos dokumentiniame kine ir videomedžiagoje” (Political Shift on the Screen: Post‐Communist Transformation in Lithuanian Film and Video).

The second half of the 1990ies and the beginning of 2000s was a special time when Lithuania, separating from the Soviet Union, became a kind of “space of extinction” (A. Abbass’s concept), which presupposes the conditions for the crystallization of a new state and society. The transformation of the political system that took place rapidly throughout Eastern Europe after 1989 was dynamic and multifaceted. The period of totalitarian rule has ended and the period of complex democratic changes in Lithuanian society has begun. Documentary films became a peculiar form of reflection on this phenomenon, stimulating public debate about new methods and cuts in writing history. Although the Sąjūdis era has received extensive and varied historical and political research, it still remains undisclosed by film and visual media researchers. The research carried out during the project reveals what narrative of documentary cinema in Lithuania generates the narrative of the political (post-communist) transformation (from the Revival, the Sąjūdis, the Baltic Way, the restoration of independence de jure and de facto)? What makes this narrative unique in the context of documentary cinema in other Baltic countries and Poland? What image of the post-communist transformation emerges in documentary cinema? Who were the chroniclers of these events standing behind / with the cameras? What did they manage to film and what material remained outside the public discourse? Why?

https://www.kf.vu.lt/mokslas/projektai/nacionaliniai/politi…