“Marine Lights”. Photo by Eglė Sabaliauskaitė 

The film and theatre director Jonas Tertelis (b. 1986) was admitted to study Business Management at Vilnius Gediminas Technical University but dropped out after the first year to start a course in Television Directing at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre. He gained a Bachelor degree in 2009, followed by an MA in 2011.

Tertelis has created seven short films, leads film education workshops and is founder and chairman of the board of the Association of Cultural Managers established in 2014.

Tertelis first appeared in theatre as an artist working with visual projections – he created projections for 10 stage plays. He usually collaborated with the directors Agnius Jankevičius, Vidas Bareikis and Olga Lapina.

Tertelis’ directorial and dramatic debut was the one-act play Yesmooncan (2014), created for the Arts Printing House programme the Open Space debut productions. Since then, Tertelis has created eight performances. He directed a play for children Kaulinis senis ant geležinio kalno (Old Man Bones on the Iron Mountain) based on the illustrated children’s book by Birutė Žilytė, a graphic art classic and a laureate of the Lithuanian National Prize for Culture and Arts, followed by the documentary theatre play Žalia pievelė (A Green Meadow), in collaboration with the German director Kristina Werner in 2017. In his latest theatre project, the director explores in-depth the topicalities of the problematic region of southeast Lithuania (premièred on 22 March 2018).

To date, Tertelis has received the Golden Cross of the Stage award three times: in 2011 together with the No Theatre troupe as a member of the creative team behind Mr FLUXUS arba Šarlatanai (Mr Fluxus or Charlatans), in 2017 as part of the creative team responsible for the production of Kodas: Hamletas (Code: Hamlet) at the Russian Drama Theatre of Lithuania, and for Old Man Bones on the Iron Mountain, which was recognised as the best play for children in 2016.

Tertelis work is mostly based on original theatre writing. Artistic explorations lead this director equally to documentaries (A Green Meadow, 2017 and Nežinoma žemė. Šalčia (Unknown Land. Šalčia, 2018, Lithuanian National Drama Theatre) and contemporary reflections (REM (Rapid Eye Movement), 2017, Klaipėda Youth Theatre), as well as towards futurism (Memofutura, 2019, Šiauliai State Drama Theatre).

The latest exploration by Tertelis took place in the port city, where together with the playwright Kristina Steiblytė and the actors of Klaipėda Youth Theatre the director created a documentary performance Jūrinės šviesos (Marine Lights, 2020). The creators of the performance collected several dozen stories from Klaipėda residents of different generations and arranged them into a variegated fabric. This work’s starting point is the post-war period when, following the occupations, evacuations and bombings, there were about six people left in the city. The performance presents a unique picture of Klaipėda, a city surrounded and sustained by the sea. Against the background of the minimalist, but highly conceptual scenography of Guoda Jaruševičiūtė, authentic stories, urban legends and unexpected confessions unfold before they are eventually submerged and carried away by sea waves.

jonastertelis@gmail.com