Presenting three hidden gems from the rich, unsung history of Lithuanian film. From the depths of the countryside to the city and the wild Baltic coast, period drama to modern fable, these titles capture the spirit of a nation searching for identity and independence.

Vytautas Žalakevičius’s classic but controversial neo-western Nobody Wanted to Die (1965) helped to reinvent Lithuanian cinema for the era of Soviet occupation, depicting a world of conflicted loyalties and brooding drama. At the other end of the spectrum lies The Beauty (1969) by Arūnas Žebriūnas, an exquisite example of communist-era children’s cinema, that offers a glimpse of everyday life in the sixties city. Finally, we look back to the turn of the twentieth century with Algimantas Puipa’s refined period melodrama A Woman and Her Four Men (1983), set against the shifting sandscapes and roaring waves of the Baltic Sea.