Lithuania’s greatest director, Jonas Mekas, left after the war before he’d even picked up a camera. That tells you something of the state of Lithuanian cinema in the 20th century. It was under the restraints of the USSR for most of the century. Soviet censorship, social realism. The first filmmaker to internally challenge that arose in the 60s and 70s. Vytautas Žalakevičius’s Nobody Wanted to Die (Niekas nenorėjo mirti) is the first major Lithuanian work and is the cornerstone of an independent Lithuanian cinema divorced from foreign overlords.

Post-independence, Lithuania broke the curve of post-USSR cinema, falling into disrepair, but instead had a resurgence. Central to this was Saurunas Bartas, whose poetic and contemplative style found film festivals and the documentaries of Arunas Matelis. which became an important part of Lithuanian film heritage. This era also saw the works of Algirdas Dausa and Arūnas Žebriūnas, whose films often focused on everyday life and human relationships, subtly infusing them with social and political commentary.