Mr. Landsbergis. 2021. Lithuania/Netherlands. Written and directed by Sergei Loznitsa. DCP courtesy Atoms & Void. In Lithuanian, Russian; English subtitles. 248 min.
Winner of the grand prize at IDFA, the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, Mr. Landsbergis is Sergei Loznitsa’s dramatic, exhaustive portrait of the (re)birth of the independent nation of Lithuania during the watershed years of 1989 to 1991. A landmark archival documentary illustrated from multiple perspectives, the film takes as its central protagonist the republic’s first parliamentary leader, Vytautas Landsbergis, a charismatic music professor turned shrewd political strategist. Landsbergis likens the story of the so-called “singing revolution,” which enabled Lithuania to break free from the Soviet Union in the face of military and economic threats, to a Brothers Grimm fairy tale, so fantastical are the lies that had justified Lithuania’s continued occupation since 1940. The Ukrainian-born Loznitsa now divides his time between Lithuania and Berlin.