Lina Lužytė
Lina Lužytė (born 1985) graduated from the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre with a master’s degree in Film Directing. She has numerous writing and directing credits in advertising and film, and as well as working as a 1st assistant director as well and a casting director on variety of projects both in Lithuania and abroad. In 2009, she wrote and directed a short film Jau puiku, tik dar šiek tiek (It Would Be Splendid, Yet) that has been selected for 20 international festivals and won such prizes as International Baltic Competition Grand Prix at Short FF 2ANNAS (2011, Latvia), Grand Prix at Monaco Charity FF (2010) or The Best foreign movie at Landau International Short Film Festival La. Meko (2009, Germany). The film, using tragic comedy, tells a story of a newly-independent Lithuania and a factory worker called Danguolė, an unofficial ambassador, who is given the opportunity to be photographed for the cover of an American magazine. The particulars and the behaviour of the characters in the background provide sharp insights about this period in the nation’s recent history and its affects to this day.
Lužytė’s documentary Igrushki (2012), was filmed in the town of Zhlobin and explores human rights violations in Belarus. Lužytė’s debut feature Amžinai kartu (Together For Ever, 2016) proposes that families are the primary social unit to exemplify issues in communication as an elucidation of contemporary society. The film premiered at the East of the West Competition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2016.