Aleksas Kazanavičius

Aleksas Kazanavičius

Birth : 1971-01-17, Altai Krai, Russia

Profile

Aleksas Kazanavičius

Movies

Black Velvet
An insecure millennial woman pursues her dream whilst learning how to adult. While being preoccupied with life tasks at hand she can barely handle and also severe depression, main character of this film Marta (30) keeps dreaming about making films, drawn to the healing power of storytelling, but not having the courage to act these dreams out; sometimes she is too scared to even pick up the phone. Marta’s life seems to sway both in comic and tragic directions: it’s sometimes a mix of ultimate freedom, sex, drugs, friendship, laughter, alcohol, lots of alcohol, music, honesty and love, and sometimes the reality Marta avoids to face becomes so brutal she can’t take it anymore. Through the course of the film Marta learns there is an unavoidable question that at some point becomes inevitable for almost every filmmaker: if you really want to direct films, can you first direct yourself out of depression?
Parade
Miglė, who married when she was very young, has for 26 years been divorced from her ex-husband who one day calls her and asks for a favour. He has found that it would be a good time to get married again after the death of his mother. But there is a small problem: their divorce is valid only in the eyes of the law, because a Catholic marriage cannot be divorced. It can, however, be annulled. All that needs to be done is to complete an application and give the “Catholic court” a good reason. But she does not know in what kind of absurd situations she is about to find herself in.
January
Andrejs
It is 1991 in Latvia and nineteen-year-old aspiring cinematographer Jazis’s whole world is thrown into chaos as he is dragged into the people’s peaceful protests against the Soviet Army’s attempted takeover of power in his country.
Dance
Wishing to restore a broken bond with his son, a father throws himself into Vilnius nightlife.
Cinephilia
With gentle irony, “Cinephilia” unmasks the illusion of film. Characters migrate through the worlds of reality and fantasy, in circumstances that paradoxically have no questions or answers. The two moons of Lars von Trier shine in the night sky, entrancing the main heroes, Roland and Isabel. Roland rents himself a room where he winds up in situations reminiscent of the plots found in Franz Kafka’s “The Trial” or Roman Polański’s “The Tenant”. A guy visits Roland, claiming that they known each other, and offers him a lot of money to film his suicide. There begins a kaleidoscopic sequence of events and random acquaintances. They make the characters wander through the worlds of reality and fantasy, sometimes both at the same time. A dark comedy that tells nine related stories in which the fates of the characters intertwine.
Nova Lituania
Feliksas Gruodis
During the interwar period, a Lithuanian geography professor tries to convince the government to establish a backup state overseas, in order to save their country from ruin. However, the idea is mostly mocked and opposed. Still, there is hope in the secret support from the elderly prime minister, who has become disillusioned with politics.
Isaac
Kaunas, Lithuania, 1941, Lithuanian activist Andrius Gluosnis kills a Jew Isaac in Lietukio garage massacre. Years after the incident Gluosnis is haunted by the guilt.
Owl Mountain
Serapinas
Radio Free Europe, BBC, and Voice of America can only rarely get through the Iron Curtain and Soviet mufflers to Lithuania, a country torn by a war between the local resistance movement and the Soviet regime that is forced onto Lithuanian people by bayonets of the Russian army. Everybody who tries to resist the Soviet rule is either terrorized or executed or exiled to Siberia. He is one of the local high-school students who witness the local armed resistance to the Soviet occupation and ultimately decide to join it by taking a gun into their hands. He collects documents and all possible kinds of evidence that prove daunting crimes of the Kremlin. He soon becomes a legend among his peers. To girls, he is John Wayne the Hollywood Icon. Guys see him as an insurmountable obstacle and an invincible rival in matters of love.
Interrogator
An NKVD interrogator is about to meet and question a talented writer he himself never was able to succeed. For to be strong and convincible he prepares for an interrogation and rehearses.
Uncle
Kristupas
Following a fatal boating accident, in which one of his students dies, Gintaras, a champion yachtsman, swears off the sea, quits sailing and withdraws into himself.
Wolf Children
The story of a boy who, driven by the search for his lost brother in the turmoil of WWII, joins a group of children in order to survive the chaos of post-war anarchy in the haunted forests of Lithuania.
Kai apkabinsiu tave
Petrov
1961. Father and daughter, separated during World War II, are trying to meet in Berlin. He comes to Berlin from Soviet Lithuania, she comes from the USA. Even if the Berlin Wall has not been built yet, the Cold War is coming close to its apogee. Political and geographical situation, that seemed to be favorable in the beginning, turns out to be deceptive. After his arrival, the father is looked after by KGB intelligence agents. They, using him as bait, are trying to lure the daughter to the east side. Affected by the citie's atmospehere that's pervated with distrust, she is afraid to cross the West Berlin boundary. Trying to save each other from the possible trap, father and daughter are ready to give up the idea of the so much desired meeting...
Whisper of Sin
Paulius
A nearly-suicidal, young woman visits a psychotherapist. She is in love with a priest, and the diagnosis of her husband's mental illness leaves no hope. The psychotherapist, in her attempts to resolve the amassed difficulties, seemingly begins to duplicate the life stages and behavioral patterns of her patient. A script for this film is based on motifs from the best-seller, scandalous novel, Witch and Rain, by female author, Jurga Ivanauskaite. By choosing a priest as the main role for a love story, the author broke an existing societal taboo. Faith, Love and Hope form the trilogy by the authors of this screenplay. Love stands as the grandest of the three.
Utterly Alone
The film portrays Lukša's attempts, in trips to western Europe, to gain support for the armed anti-Soviet resistance (known as the Forest Brothers), whose fortunes in a guerrilla war against Soviet authorities were waning, largely due to widespread infiltration and harsh crackdowns by the NKVD.