Directed by Vytautas Žalakevičius • 1965 • USSR/Lithuania

1947, the Lithuanian countryside. The village Soviet chairman Lokys has been murdered by the “Forest Brothers”: nationalist guerillas bitterly opposed to the new communist regime. Lokys’s four sons return to the village seeking vengeance, only to find themselves caught in a twisted web of conflicting allegiances and half-buried secrets. Director Vytautas Žalakevičius and star Donatas Banionis (best known for his lead role in Tarkovsky’s Solaris) won State Prizes for this tense and morally ambiguous Soviet-Baltic take on the western, which remains controversial for its depiction of post-war occupation and collaboration. What is not up for debate is the filmmaking craft on display, from Jonas Gricius’s elegant camerawork to the laconic screenplay that weaves together the fate of a single family with that of a divided homeland.

NOBODY WANTED TO DIE • NIEKAS NENORĖJO MIRTI
Written and directed by Vytautas Žalakevičius
Cinematography by Jonas Gricius
Music by Algimantas Apanavičius
Starring: Regimantas Adomaitis, Juozas Budraitis, Donatas Banionis

In Lithuanian with English subtitles