Deep Rivers Run Silent’26

Set over the course of a single day in a sprawling, half-finished Prague housing estate, Věra Chytilová’s Panelstory follows a multigenerational cast of residents as they navigate a world of mud-filled pathways, broken utilities, and endless construction delays. From young mothers struggling through the building site to an elderly man searching for his new apartment, the film assembles a kaleidoscopic portrait of everyday life amid the chaos of late-socialist urban development. By turns hilarious, absurd, and deeply humane, Chytilová transforms the prefab estate into a microcosm of Czechoslovak society, exposing the failures of bureaucracy, the persistence of community, and the ingenuity required to endure both.

Banned from wide release upon its completion, the film remains one of the director’s sharpest social satires and a landmark work of Czech cinema. Blending documentary immediacy with anarchic comedy, Panelstory captures a society permanently under construction.

About the organisation

Media education and research centre Meno avilys has been working in the audiovisual field for over 20 years, presenting the diversity of moving images, working on educational projects and cultural research, restoring, digitizing and distributing audiovisual heritage, creating a platform for emerging filmmakers and inviting to explore the Cinematheque’s collection, open for all in the space located in Goštautas street 2

This programme of short films and miraculously preserved archival fragments invites us to remember that cinema does not only speak to our emotions – it also constantly engages the body. This is especially evident in early erotic films – provocative yet filled with a unique and unfiltered cinematic magic. It would be misleading to call these films merely sexual, because there is so much more at work. There is a kind of radiance, a pulsing, a flickering quality that lends them a paradoxical sense of sacredness. Faces appear both alluring and mysteriously illuminated, merging with the contours of fading silhouettes. Could it be that the art of filmmaking is inherently erotic? Let’s find out.

The screening will be accompanied by Matas Samulionis (saxophone, modular synthesizer).

About the organisation

The Early Film Festival Pirmoji banga is the only continuous initiative in the Baltic States dedicated to presenting the heritage of early cinema to contemporary audiences in a comprehensive and meaningful way.

hold on to her is a cinematic response to a recent case of police and state violence within Belgium’s migration border control. It is a poetic reflection on the people who refuse to let this violence fade from memory – a testament to a slow solidarity rooted in care and togetherness.

The theme of this film is deeply relevant to us. In Lithuania and across Europe, we increasingly see how fear and violence against migrants become a part of everyday life, something society gradually grows accustomed to.

When calls to “send them back” echo through the European Parliament, and pushback policies – which sometimes result in human deaths – continue at the Lithuanian border, we realize that these are not isolated incidents. They are part of systemic political decisions that shape our collective reality.

The film invites us to pause and ask: what does it mean to live in a society where some people are protected while others are pushed to the margins? How do we remain sensitive to it when it is becoming increasingly normalized? We chose this film as an invitation to refuse to get used to it.

About the organisation

Sienos Grupė is a non-governmental organization providing humanitarian, social, and legal assistance to migrants in Lithuania, regardless of their legal status.

Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep is set in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, where slaughterhouse worker Stan struggles to support his family amid the economic decline of 1970s America. Shot on location over several years with a largely nonprofessional cast, the film moves through fragments of daily life – children playing in vacant lots, neighbors talking on stoops, and quiet domestic interiors.

Blending documentary immediacy with poetic observation, Ch. Burnett captures the textures of a community shaped by hardship, exhaustion, and fleeting moments of tenderness. As Stan navigates work and family life, the film traces the ways people attempt to hold together a sense of home under pressure. Long unavailable after its completion in 1977 due to expensive and unresolved music copyright issues, Killer of Sheep remains a defining work of American independent cinema.

The young film programmers of Meno avilys will open their film catalogue and invite the audience to explore sensitive and quiet stories – little narratives.

The films for this socially conscious catalogue were selected by an international group of young film programmers from Spain, Croatia, Lithuania, and Slovenia under the “Young4Film” project, in collaboration with international film festivals: “Cinehill”, “Kino Otok”, “Piccolo Grande Cinema”, the Vilnius International Short Film Festival, and cultural organizations “A Bao A Qu” and “Meno avilys”.

About the project

Young Programmers / Young Curators is an educational initiative by Meno Avilys that offers young people the chance to „try on” the role of a film programmer: to watch films, discuss them, curate their film selections, and present them publicly.

A brother and sister set out to avenge the murder of their parents. As they hone their martial arts skills and search for the legendary Holy Flame Sword, they must battle demons and ghosts and overcome the deadly traps of an ancient temple.

Holy Flame of the Martial World is a fascinating relic from the golden years of the Shaw Brothers studio’s golden age. As the kung fu boom of the 1970s began to fade, director Lu Chun-Ku abandoned realistic fight choreography in favour of the fantasy martial arts subgenre known as wuxia. Here, traditional wirework is combined with an abundance of special effects that would later become a hallmark of 1980s Hong Kong cinema.

About the organisation

Mondo Bizarro is a horror, fantasy and cult film festival, complemented by a year-round programme of monthly screenings devoted to the heritage of genre filmmaking. Mondo Bizarro strives to familiarize audiences with unique horror, fantasy, action and science fiction movies from around the world, while shining a spotlight on both renowned and up-and-coming directors.

Two Days, One Night (directed by Jean-Pierre Dardenne & Luc Dardenne) is a sensitive social drama. Over the course of a weekend, the protagonist (played by Marion Cotillard) tries to persuade her colleagues to give up their bonus so that she can keep her job. The film explores the connections of mental illness and social stigma, social-financial reality, free labor market, and solidarity.

Before the screening, a discussion titled What Do We Do When We Don’t Work? Solidarity, Illness, and the Labour Market will take place. The conversation will address the right to be ill and to rest in the face of labour market pressures, as well as the limits of collective responsibility and solidarity. We will also discuss the emotional impact of economic insecurity on individuals and communities, and examine how a culture of productivity shapes our relationship with self-worth, health, and participation in social life.

The discussion will feature a mental health ambassador from Žvelk giliau, alongside experts and activists working in the fields of workers’ rights and mental health.

About the organisation

Rūpestinga kultūra is a non-profit organization working at the intersection of culture, health, and activism. It organizes the Mental Health Arts Festival RYŠIAI, which invites audiences to explore how communities, artists, health professionals, and researchers can work together to create the structural changes needed to improve public mental health and reduce stigma.
The fourth edition of RYŠIAI, taking place in October 2026, will examine the relationship between work and health. The programme will focus on care work and on the connections between productivity, mental health, participation in social life, and self-worth.

Žvelk giliau Mental Health Ambassador Initiative: “Mental health without stereotypes!” The initiative is organized by the Institute of Hygiene and funded by the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Lithuania.

The Queer Archive išgir̃stì, as well as the Vilnius Queer Festival Kreivės, are inviting viewers to the most prominent film screening of Rosa von Praunheim, who died at the end of 2025, to commemorate the filmmaker.

Film was released in 1971 and its impact in Germany was comparable to that of the 1969 Stonewall riots in the United States, which gave rise to the LGBTQ+ rights movement. Von Praunheim’s film acted as an encouragement for the community to unite and fight for its rights. It is not only a story of a young man living in 1960s Berlin, but also a sociological treatise and a critique of both the marginalised and self-segregating homosexual community of the time.

Rosa von Praunheim was a famous Latvian-born German documentary filmmaker. However, he is still little known to the Lithuanian public. Like many artists of his generation, the filmmakers of the so-called New German Cinema, Rosa sought to shake the post-war German society, raise political and social questions, and not only capture reality but also transform it.

The screening is organized in collaboration with Goethe-Institut

About the organisation

išgir̃stì is a space for queer social and cultural action. Its activities encompass queer culture, archiving, and psychosocial welfare. Vilnius Queer Festival Kreivės is their cultural and social initiative. Since 2014, they have been creating a space for connections, self-expression, and change through queer cultural events – film screenings, readings, exhibitions, parties. The 13th edition of Kreivės will take place in Vilnius on September 4-9, 2026, with additional events held throughout the year in Vilnius and Kaunas.

A young teacher arrives in a remote Taiwanese village to temporarily take over his sister’s position.
Although he initially feels out of place in his new surroundings, he gradually settles into the rhythms of village life, shaped by children’s mischief, simplicity, and the slow pace of nature. Yet anxiety begins to creep into the village quietly and almost imperceptibly, while unsettling its idyllic way of life. Poverty, fragile nature, and the signs of an increasingly modern world begin to disturb the fragile harmony of the countryside. In this movie, summer warmth, childish naivety, and melancholy come together to form a nostalgic reflection on the unstoppable flow of life.

This screening is part of a retrospective dedicated to director Hou Hsiao-Hsien, organized by the Skalvija cinema center. The extensive retrospective of the Taiwanese filmmaker will take place in September at Skalvija.

Hou Hsiao-Hsien is one of the leading figures of the Taiwanese New Wave and one of the most modern directors in the world. Since the 1980s, his work has not only shaped Taiwan’s cinematic identity but has also had a profound impact on global film aesthetics, particularly in European cinema and independent filmmaking.

About the organisation

The Skalvija cinema center has been operating since 1963 and is the oldest continuously running cinema in Vilnius. The center seeks to foster film culture and strengthen alternatives to mainstream commercial cinema in Vilnius and across Lithuania. Skalvija introduces audiences to non-commercial cinema, with a particular focus on European and arthouse films. The center organizes classic film programmes, director retrospectives, and thematic film cycles. Skalvija also places great emphasis on Lithuanian cinema by presenting the work of Lithuanian filmmakers, organizing special events – including retrospectives and premieres – and hosting discussions with film crews.

Set in Lebanon at the end of the 1980s, Ghassan Salhab’s Phantom Beirut follows Khalil as he returns to Beirut after a decade of absence, having once faked his death during the civil war. Now living under a new identity, he moves through a city still marked by conflict, where rumors of his return circulate among former friends who believed him gone.

Blending fiction with interviews with the lead actors about their direct experience of the conflict that defined their lives, the film reflects on exile, memory, and the aftershocks of war in both people and place. Phantom Beirut becomes a meditation on survival and continuity, tracing how communities hold on when collective memory is fragmented and unsettled.

A record filmed over several years, documenting indigenous Bunong people in the remote highlands of northeastern Cambodia, who continue to live according to ancestral traditions. True to the name of Phnom, which means mountain or hill in Khmer, they live in harmony with the mountain’s nature, which is now threatened by climate change and the severe impacts of land development by international corporations. Rithy Panh employs archival footage from various eras to show how their unique life has been transformed, while also presenting their current existence. We Are the Fruits of the Forest questions how humans in modern society should engage with nature.

Film screening will be enriched by a discussion, grounded in our cultural and natural context, with environmental and anthropology experts about what the relationship between Lithuanians and forests was like in the past, what has changed, and what has remained up to the present day. The participants of the discussion will be announced closer to the event.

About the organisations

Girių Spiečius celebrates and reminds us of the importance of forests for modern human. Having come together to protect the integrity of forests, the members of the group foster an understanding of the forest as a source of well-being and an essential environment for a healthy society, flora, and fauna. They also take part in the consideration of forest legislation. The initiative group encourages lawmakers to enshrine community involvement in forestry matters, protect forest habitats, and broaden the understanding of the benefits provided by forests. More chirping, greener forests for everyone.

Sengirės kinas is a project that combines cinema and environmental education, inspired by the impact of Mindaugas Survila’s film ‘The Ancient Woods’ (Sengirė) on the protection of Lithuania’s old-growth forests. Carefully selected films from around the world, revealing the wonder and fragility of nature, are shown alongside presentations and discussions by scientists who contextualize them within Lithuania. The events are designed to draw attention to the ecological situation in Lithuania. Sengirės kinas aims to become a platform where cinema becomes a tool for change, and viewers become a community of change.

One of the first independent films made in Hong Kong, and an important precursor to the Hong Kong New Wave, T’ang Shushuen’s The Arch adapts a 17th-century Chinese folktale about the suppression of a woman’s desire. One of the first women directors in Hong Kong cinema, T’ang brings a distinct perspective to this story of constraint and longing.

Madam Tung, a widowed woman living with her frail mother-in-law and her daughter, awaits imperial approval to have an arch erected in recognition of her virtue. Her carefully ordered life is disrupted by the arrival of Captain Yang, whose presence draws both mother and daughter into a quiet but escalating emotional tension. The resulting triangle unfolds through restraint and suggestion, building toward a feverish climax within the confines of the household.

The Arch is a film of striking visual richness and distinctive rhythms, achieved by T’ang through two notable collaborations: it was shot by Subrata Mitra (best known for his work with Satyajit Ray), and edited by the great documentarian Les Blank.

The Arch is one of the films under M+ Restored, an initiative supported by M+’s Major Partner, CHANEL.