The cycle of documentary film screenings COMMON PEOPLE initiated by Kaunas Artists’ House (KAH) and Kitas Kinas is back for the third outdoor cinema season! This time at Kaunas culture center terrace.
PROGRAMME
August 11 – September 1
KKC terrace (Vytauto prospektas 79, Kaunas)
COMMON PEOPLE: Mayor (David Osit, 2020)
August 11, 8:30 p.m.
A real-life political saga following Musa Hadid, the Christian mayor of Ramallah (the de facto Palestinian capital). Surrounded on all sides by Israeli settlements and soldiers, most people in Ramallah will never have the chance to travel more than a few miles outside their home, which is why Mayor Hadid is determined to make the city a beautiful and dignified place to live. Rich with detailed observation and a surprising amount of humor, MAYOR offers a portrait of dignity amidst the madness and absurdity of endless occupation while posing a question: how do you run a city when you don’t have a country?
Documentary, USA, UK, 2020, Arabic with English and Lithuanian subtitles for deaf or hard of hearing, 89 min
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COMMON PEOPLE: My Darling Supermarket (rež. Tali Yankelevich, 2019)
August 18, 8:30 p.m.
In the midst of executing extremely repetitive tasks, workers of a supermarket find space to express their doubts and affections, their fears and unlikely dreams. Humor, drama, mystery, romance and quantum physics coexist alongside milk cartons, meat cuts, bar codes and security cameras. Steeped in the confined space of a supermarket, these workers don’t allow their routine to hijack their spirit.
Documentary, Brazil, Denmark, 2019, Portuguese with English and Lithuanian subtitles for deaf or hard of hearing, 80 min.ms, 80 min.
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COMMON PEOPLE: Lost Boys (rež. Joonas Neuvonen, Sadri Cetinkaya, 2020)
August 25, 8:30 p.m.
Three friends travel to Southeast Asia to party, only one of them returns. Something has happened but all that is known about the events is from a collection of videos and contradictory stories. The film follows the main character’s voyage in search of his friends and of answers to what happened to them after they stayed in Cambodia. “Lost Boys is brutal cinema, with a screenplay provided by real-life events its aim being to tell the truth.” – Joonas Neuvonen, director of Lost Boys
Documentary, Finland, 2020, Finish, English and Thai with English and Lithuanian subtitles for deaf or hard of hearing, 99 min.
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COMMON PEOPLE: Hey! Teachers! (rež. Yulia Vishnevets, 2020)
September 1, 8:30 p.m.
Two young intellectuals, Katya and Vassya, come to a small industrial town to work as teachers. They want to change the system of scholastic education and the social situation in difficult regions. The school is a closed conservative world, where obedience and discipline are of the highest value. Young teachers discover that nationalism, sexism and homophobia are typical for their new environment. Children see the school as a prison and are completely indifferent to any new ideas. During one school year we observe attempts of our protagonists to bring new practices into the system. Young teachers try to speak with children about feminism, human rights and Russian politics, but the system pushes them out, and a comedy turns into a drama.
Documentary, Russia, 2020, Russian with English and Lithuanian subtitles for deaf or hard of hearing, 90 min.
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After every film preview there will be discussions with various experts of different fields of interest. They will be announced soon.
Tickets and discounts: tickets cost €3 (€1,5 concessions – schoolchildren, students, seniors, people with disabilities). Tickets can be purchased at “Tiketa” sales points in person and online. Tickets won’t be available to purchase at the event venue.
The COMMON PEOPLE screening series aims to discuss not only the content of documentary films, but also the whole notion of documentary cinema. The series addresses questions of ethics, directorial decisions. To film or not to film? When does a director cross the line of closeness with their subject? Should documentary cinema reflect ‘reality’ or the vision of its creator? These questions and others are raised and discussed by looking at films who maintain a close look at people telling their own stories: sensitive, creative, eccentric and based somewhere in the margins.
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The project is curated by Karolis Žukas (Kitas Kinas) and Edvinas Grinkevičius (Kaunas Artists’ House).
Visual identity: Eglė Simonavičiūtė.
The project is financed by the Lithuanian Film Center, organised by Kaunas Artists’ House. Partners: platform Kitas Kinas, Kaunas Culture Center, Kaunas Deaf Rehabilitation Centre.