Actor: Dmitrij Denisiuk

Defiance

Based on a true story, during World War II, four Jewish brothers escape their Nazi-occupied homeland of West Belarus in Poland and join the Soviet partisans to combat the Nazis. The brothers begin the rescue of roughly 1,200 Jews still trapped in the ghettos of Poland.

Feature Film About Life

It is highly probable that before their own death, everyone has to organise someone else’s funeral. This is by far not an easy task. In addition to the searing grief, dying also brings a number of tasks that are at once utterly alien and intensely time-critical. The main character of this film, Dovile, who unexpectedly has to bury her father, has to face the bedlam of exactly such a challenge. Overnight, the young girl has to become a skilful organiser of a family event, while also being a specialist on coffins, urns, wreaths and funeral feasts. Dovile’s journey towards organising a perfect funeral is inevitably full of hardship and mishaps, accompanied mainly by black humour and comical situations.

Invisible

Jonas (Dainius Kazlauskas) pretends to be blind and enters a TV dance contest, where he meets his attractive dance partner Saule (Paulina Taujanskaite). Soon they become the show's most popular contestants. While the whole nation thinks that Jonas is blind, Vytas (Darius Bagdziunas), an old acquaintance of Jonas, is released from prison. As reminders of the past keep creeping up on them, Vytas is suppressing contradictory feelings - to seek revenge or forgiveness in such a manipulative world - for sins that were and for sins to be made.

Dummy

Using a faceless doll criminal reenacts a brutal crime. But surprisingly he is not the one being judged. There seems to be an odd one out in the investigative group. The film premiered in the Berlinale Short competition programme.