For the sixth year in a row, the free cultural event series Deep Rivers Run Silent is set to brighten summer evenings in Vilnius. This year’s program features no fewer than 18 free events between July 1 and August 7: film screenings, concerts, live radio listening sessions, a theatrical performance, discussions, and artist talks. Organized by Meno Avilys, the project welcomes its sixth season in a new venue — the Rail Park Hangar at the Railway Museum, framed by the constant movement of trains.
According to the organizers, the heart of Deep Rivers Run Silent is a five-film program curated by Meno Avilys, inviting audiences to rediscover works that have long remained at the margins of cinema history. Restored and rarely screened, the films highlight ways of reclaiming agency — subtly or radically — in the face of social, political, and personal restrictions. From quiet acts of rebellion to complete self-destruction, these works, across diverse cinematic forms and historical contexts, grapple with the necessity of autonomy, even when it comes at the cost of solitude.
The series opens on July 1 with Czech director Jiří Menzel’s 1966 classic Closely Watched Trains — an event that also marks Meno Avilys’ 20th anniversary. As program director Ona Kotryna Dikavičiūtė explains, this very film was part of the organization’s first open-air cinema program. “Now, moving from beneath Liubartas Bridge to the Rail Park Hangar, Closely Watched Trains felt like the perfect choice to mark both the organization’s anniversary and the project’s opening. Not only because it is set in a train station, but also because the film shows how even the most intimate, seemingly ‘apolitical’ choices — sexuality, love, shame — are bound up with wider power structures. This resonates strongly today, at a time when authoritarian forces are once again gaining ground and individual rights are increasingly under threat. At the same time, the film proposes humor as a form of resistance: in today’s world, where many face existential fatigue and social injustice, the ability to hold on to humanity through humor becomes not only an aesthetic, but also an ethical choice,” says Dikavičiūtė.
Other films in the Meno Avilys program include Girls (dir. Sumitra Peries), Friendship’s Death (dir. Peter Wollen), 21:12 Puerta de Sol (dir. Mary Jimenez), and Bona (dir. Lino Brocka), taking viewers on a journey across time and space — from the 1970s and 80s to places as varied as Sri Lanka, Belgium, the Philippines, and the UK. “The program brings together important films that have been restored in recent years thanks to researchers and archives, allowing them to regain their original form and reach wider audiences. Some were long considered lost, others shelved or censored, and only now have been restored to the filmmaker’s original vision. For example, Peter Wollen’s Friendship’s Death was for many years known only from a low-quality VHS tape owned by its star Tilda Swinton, until the original 16mm negative was discovered in the BFI archives. The debut film by Sumitra Peries, the first female director in Sri Lanka, Girls, was restored from three severely damaged 35mm prints, with the best parts selected from each. After a long and complex process, the film premiered in May at the Cannes Film Festival — and Lithuanian audiences will be among the first to see this rare work,” explains Dikavičiūtė.
Through an open call, Deep Rivers Run Silent also welcomes 15 cultural and activist organizations from across the Baltics, all contributing events tied together by the theme of shifting spaces and the (un)freedom to move within them. A new feature this year is expanded collaboration among Vilnius-based cultural organizations, joined by guests from Latvia and Estonia. Free events at the Rail Park Hangar will be organized by: the NGO Architecture Fund, film production company Taip toliau, Skalvija Cinema Center, community radio Radio Vilnius and the program Blissfully Yours, the educational film project Young Programmers, the film club Cinézine and the migrant rights NGO Sienos Grupė, the National Student Film Festival Aurora and the Skalvija Film Academy, Vilnius Queer Festival Kreivės and the LGBT+ community project Rainbow Musical, the cult and genre film series Mondo Bizarro, the Contemporary Art Centre’s venue at Sapieha Palace, the analog film collective Baltic Analog Lab (Latvia), and the short film festival Valga Hot Shorts (Estonia).