Screenings
POPPIES: Amira Dayekh “The South is me”. Film premiere and readings | Cinematheque Event Series
“Meno avilys,” together with the Palestinian liberation organising group POPPIES, invites you to join a film screening and readings about Palestine, Lebanon, the surrounding region, and Israel’s ongoing aggression. POPPIES member, Lithuanian-Lebanese Amira Dayekh, will present her short documentary film “The South is me.” The film is the author’s visual archive, documenting the scars left in Southern Lebanon by decades of Israeli aggression. Footage filmed by Amira Dayekh in 2025 also became a love letter from her father, Abbas, to his homeland.
Solomiya: The Many Afterlives of Her Eternal Now. Screening and new issue launch | Cinematheque Event Series
“The Many Afterlives of Her Eternal Now” stages a conversation between anti-imperialist cultural workers, by asking what is it that we do while waiting for the Empires to fall – when ends justify the means and yet there seems to be no end in sight. The talk is framed by two short films focusing on the perpetual cultural and manual peace-making labour in the context of the fall of Yugoslavia, followed by a presentation of the 5th issue of “Solomiya” magazine “After Now” that reflects on the 12th year of Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine.
“Cinézine” Film Club: Margaret Tait’s Notebooks. Curated screening and readings | Cinematheque event series
This event, dedicated to the work of Margaret Tait, reflects upon the relationship between text in cinema and, conversely, cinema in literature. Born in Scotland, Tait spent her entire life making films and writing poetry; consequently, a poetic logic permeates her cinematic recordings of everyday life, while her written texts often contain scenes from unrealised film scripts. The curatorial concept of this programme was inspired by Margaret Tait’s book “Personae” (ed. Sarah Neely)—a publication that departs from the conventions of the standard memoir, combining autofiction with notebook pages and photographs from Tait’s personal archive.
20013: exhibition in the Cinematheque exposition space | Cinematheque event series
This exhibition has no topic. Or to be more precise, the topic is too broad and abstract to define. “20013” is dedicated to the act of remixing, whilst viewing it both as a force of annihilation and empowerment. The main aim of this exhibition is to build an experience packed with raw destruction, humour, and a glimpse of melancholy – all to create a variety of moods we often use to define reality. It is sought that the exhibition – as well as works in it – would remind one of the opportunity for change or some space for potential; this potential sometimes arises in a bleak situation when a few pieces are rearranged.
Milda Januševičiūtė: unreliable narrator. Artist talk | Cinematheque event series
Meno Avilys Cinematheque will host a lecture and screening 𝘂𝗻𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗻𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿 by visual artist and cultural sociologist Milda Januševičiūtė. The event will feature a selection of Milda’s own video works and will examine digital amnesia and the politics of memory in the technofeudalist age, where personal and collective histories are increasingly shaped and erased by corporate infrastructures, algorithmic filtering, and platform governance.
Agnieszka Rayzacher: From Forests and Swamps. Lecture and curated screening | Cinematheque event series
For this screening, art critic, curator, publisher, and feminist Agnieszka Rayzacher will unveil the stories hidden in swamps and forests. We invite you to a lecture-curated screening where films by A. Maceina, J. Rajkowska, and R. Yerachmiel Sniderman will reveal Eastern European death rituals and the landscapes of historical memory. Two films – “Black Box” by Algimantas Maceina (1994) and “Night Herons” by Joanna Rajkowska and Robert Yerachmiel Sniderman (2020) – intertwine narratives of the presence of death rituals in the societies and cultures of Central and Eastern Europe.
okcandice: There Were 12 of Us. Performance-lecture | Cinematheque event series
There Were 12 of Us is a live sonic-performance lecture on Black grief and temporalities. Using select works from the “Meno avilys” Cinematheque’s archive, 𝗼𝗸𝗰𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗰𝗲 explores the Black somatic body when faced with normative conventions of Western (European) temporal constructs. Such experiences as isolation, ostracisation and racism generate moments of crisis that shift the body’s response to linear time. okcandice proposes that sound can help us examine Black time geographies and, in turn, allow Black people to functionally and socially exist in a new time/space of their own making.
Arnaud Hée: Appearances of the Past. Talk and curated screening | Cinematheque event series
We invite you to dive into the layers of temporality during documentary film curator Arnaud Hée’s talk and curated screening “Appearances of the Past.” The event will focus on films from the Cinematheque collection that are set in the apparent present without aiming to reconstruct historical narratives. These works are not made up of archival footage – instead, they capture the present moment in the past. Without relying on metaphors, these films allow the past to appear as an impression, a fleeting feeling that emerges within the film itself.
First Women Filmmakers in Lithuania
The “First Women Filmmakers in Lithuania” program of the Media Education and Research Center Meno Avilys presents six newly restored documentaries created by female directors: Antanina Pavlova, Diana and Kornelijus Matuzevičius, Janina Lapinskaitė, Jadvyga Zinaida Janulevičiūtė and Bytautė Pajėdienė. The program, curated by Dr. Lina Kaminskaitė, aims to draw attention to little-known films of the first female filmmakers in Lithuania.
Deep Rivers Run Silent
Deep Rivers Run Silent is an ongoing series of summer screenings and events organized by Meno Avilys. It was hosted under the Liubartas Bridge from 2020 to 2024, then was relocated to the Rail Park Hangar in 2025. Its program encompasses a diverse range of events, including screenings of films and video art, live concerts, literary readings, and meetings with artists, presented by cultural organisations.
Rachael Rakes and Amelia Groom: Time Left Over From Time. Talk and curated screening
For this screening program, Rachael Rakes and Amelia Groom draw on their individual and collective research, writing, and artistic collaborations on the politics of time and duration.The selection of moving image works from the past half century is anchored in Robertas Verba’s Dreams of the Centenarians (1969), which broke with Soviet aesthetic rules for depicting strength, youth, and social cohesion, with its 100-year-old subjects baring witness to pre-revolutionary life and everything after through distinctive, often-dark humour.
This event is part of the Meno Avilys Cinematheque event series, curated by Ona Kotryna Dikavičiūtė and Gerda Paliušytė.
Queer History Perspectives in Lithuania: Presentations and Discussion + Screening of the Film “Neirud”
“išgir̃stì” Queer Archive, Vilnius Queer Festival “Kreivės” and “Meno Avilys” are organizing a two-part event and invite you to discuss the research, reclamation, and preservation of queer history in Lithuania. What is already known about the Lithuanian queer history? What has already been accomplished in researching it? What is still missing? What would we like to learn? What could the future of this research look like?
This event is part of the Meno Avilys Cinematheque event series, curated by Ona Kotryna Dikavičiūtė and Gerda Paliušytė.
Institute of Heritage. Landscapes of Scientifiction
During the event, the Institute of Heritage will examine the manifestations of science fiction in the local context by invoking the documentaries and periodicals on Soviet industry from the 1960s to the 1980s. The presentation will analyze the dissonance between science and propaganda and the ensuing fictitious landscape of the Soviet utopia.
This event is part of the Meno Avilys Cinematheque event series, curated by Ona Kotryna Dikavičiūtė and Gerda Paliušytė.
Farahnaz Sharifi. The Power of Archiving
Artist talk by Farahnaz Sharifi, where we will explore the significance of archiving in documentary films and personal narratives. Film examples will be shown to illustrate the transformative power of archiving and the importance of preserving our past for future generations.
The artist talk is free of charge and will be held in English.
This event is part of the Meno Avilys Cinematheque event series, curated by Ona Kotryna Dikavičiūtė and Gerda Paliušytė.
The Screens of Blue Nothingness
Five short-form experimental documentaries invite you to pass the digital threshold by entering the realm of blue nothingness. Curated by Martyna Ratnik.
This event is part of the Meno Avilys Cinematheque event series, curated by Ona Kotryna Dikavičiūtė and Gerda Paliušytė.
Collective Dreaming
“Collective Dreaming” is a research and events programme that weaves together Scottish, Ukrainian and Lithuanian moving images and thoughts in search of connection and collective liberation. In solidarity against all forms of colonial violence, the programme aims to question imperial, capitalist, and patriarchal systems of power to make sense of our current reality. In this context, we look at art as a method to open ourselves up to new possibilities of thinking, hoping, dreaming and collaborating.
Queer City Cinema
“Meno avilys” has been included in the “Queer City Cinema” film screening map in the Baltic Sea region. Founded in Canada in 1995, the film and video art festival will present its program at “Meno avilys” cinematheque (Goštauto St. 2, Vilnius), featuring short films, experimental films, animated films, essay films, and video art pieces.
Kids on Air
The programme of Lithuanian and foreign video artists Kids on Air selected by Gerda Paliušytė, the curator at Meno Avilys, will start the 2024 edition of Cinematheque events. This program refuses to associate the child with infantility and depicts the themes of childhood-motherhood-fatherhood without prejudices.
This City is Weightless
This programme completes the organization’s thematic line of travelogues and travel films developed in 2023. Being in the city and with it, and seeing the city as a space of imagination, quest, and “coming of age” that shapes you and is shaped by you, is the thread that connects all three parts of the program.
Exhibition A Trick of Light
Exhibition by artist Pam Virada (Thailand) “A Trick of Light”: from October 13th to 26th in the exhibition space of “Meno Avilys” Cinemateque. Organised together with Rupert. Curators – Gerda Paliušytė and Ona Kotryna Dikavičiūtė.
Film programme Travelogues: Thinking Through Landscape
The six-film programme turns to the topic of travelogues and travel films, which has so far been underrepresented and rarely explored in Lithuania, and looks at the different transformations of travelogues, from the early amateur approach to the now widely recognised classic essay films.
Videograms’22
In 2022, VIDEOGRAMS, a festival of artists’ films and moving images, will take place in the city of Vilnius, The Cinematheque of Meno avilys (A. Gostauto st. 2), from 24th November to the 11th December 2022.
Exhibition SLEEPLESSNESS
On 24 November at 7 pm the group exhibition „Sleeplessness“ will open artists’ films and moving images festival VIDEOGRAMS’22. The exhibition is displayed in viewing rooms, curated by Meno avilys Cinematheque (corner of A. Goštauto and A. Vienuolio streets, Vilnius) and will last for all festival dates – until December 11th
Not Only Eyes: Lust
From July 1st to July 30th, a non-traditional exhibition space welcomes “Not Only Eyes: Lust,” an art show of moving images by students of two Lithuanian art schools – Vilniaus Academy of Arts and Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre. Curator – Gerda Paliušytė.
Films by Female Artists from the Middle East and North Africa
From May 26 until July 1, Media Education and Research Center “Meno avilys invites to screenings of contemporary female filmmakers from the Middle East and North Africa, accompanied by presentations and talks by filmmakers, curators, and researchers. The events will take place in the film and media space “Planeta” (A. Goštauto St. 2, Vilnius) and in the space under the Liubartas bridge.
Several Lines
Several Lines is a two-day film screening series featuring films by Ukrainian filmmakers Oleksiy Radynski and Oksana Karpovych, and works by Lithuanian artist Laura Stasiulytė. The series focuses on the dynamic post-Soviet identity, the problem and the importance of its authenticity and sovereignty, its open, ever-changing and nuanced reality.
US Independent Women’s Cinema
On Thursdays from February 10 until March 17, Media Education and Research Center “Meno avilys” invites to retrospective film program. „Rebellion, Love and Friendship: U.S. Independent Women‘s Cinema“ is a cycle of six screenings of films accompanied by talks by filmmakers, curators and critics. The events will take place in the cinema and media space „Planeta“ (A. Goštauto St. 2, Vilnius).
Narrow Reels, Wide Eyes
Narrow Reels, Wide Eyes is a series of talks and short film programs dedicated to the legacy of amateur filmmaking in five post-Soviet countries – Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine and Russia.
Slow Screenings
Since 2016, the project is developed with the view to slow down fast cinema consumption, bring like-minded people together and contribute to the promotion of film culture in general. Film historians, researchers and critics from both Lithuania and abroad are invited to unfold a broader context. Slow Screenings are organized in thematic cycles, presenting different movements or filmmakers important in the history of cinema.
Projections
Projections is a series of film screenings and conversations meant for reflecting on our emotional well-being and challenges faced during the lockdown period. In collaboration with psychological health professionals, we invite people to explore the intersections between cinema, psychology and our everyday lives through open conversation. Here, films become a starting point for engaging in an open conversation, sharing experiences or practical advice.
Cinema camp
Multi-day international summer event that started in 2010 and was organised in various Lithuanian manors, inviting its participants to join an informal conversation on an ever-new topic related to moving image art. Filmmakers presented their films and took part in discussions, film scholars gave presentations specially prepared for the camp programme, and the campers took part in workshops, reading groups and radio listening sessions.
Luminous Shadows
Luminous Shadows was the first solo exhibition of Thai film director and artist Apichatpong Weerasethakul in the Baltic States. Alongside the exhibition at the Contemporary Art Centre, the event also included a film retrospective screened at the Skalvija Film Centre, presenting all eight of the director’s feature-length films and four programmes of short films.
