Blurred Border
The Curonian Spit is a narrow sand peninsula, 98 km of length, which separates the Curonian Lagoon from the Baltic Sea. In the South, Lithuanian part of the Spit borders with Kaliningrad region of the Russian Federation (former germ. Königsberg, lith. Karaliaučius). Nowadays the borderline marks the external borders of the European Union. This land went through extremely turbulent historical events that touched todays’ inhabitants and nature.
In mirrored documentaries the differences of regime and socio-cultural context in the Curonian Spit’s Lithuanian and Russian (Kaliningrad) sides – where the inhabitants live on a quite separated and isolated land – will be explored. The local people on both sides of the border are leading a quite similar lifestyle. Main characters will be the same on both sides of the border: a fisherman in Preila and a fisherman in Rybachyi (former germ. Rossiten, lith. Rasytė). In realization two pictures of fishermen merged into one with (border) line in the middle will be used. Two documentaries will be made on the same framework: meaning, that scenes, the characters, the environment and the atmosphere will be the same on Lithuanian and Russian sides. The website would function with virtual borderline in the middle. In such way the borderline between Lithuanian and Russian parts will be integrated into the entire storytelling. The user will see virtual borderline on the screen, scrolling to the right would unveil the Lithuanian part of the story, scrolling to the left would picture the Russian part.
Blurred Border will be released as four portraits reflecting the four seasons on the Curonian Spit. The fisherman is linked with autumn; a writer with winter; a forester with spring and a taxi driver is the most active in summer.
In mirrored documentaries the differences of regime and socio-cultural context in the Curonian Spit’s Lithuanian and Russian (Kaliningrad) sides – where the inhabitants live on a quite separated and isolated land – will be explored. The local people on both sides of the border are leading a quite similar lifestyle. Main characters will be the same on both sides of the border: a fisherman in Preila and a fisherman in Rybachyi (former germ. Rossiten, lith. Rasytė). In realization two pictures of fishermen merged into one with (border) line in the middle will be used. Two documentaries will be made on the same framework: meaning, that scenes, the characters, the environment and the atmosphere will be the same on Lithuanian and Russian sides. The website would function with virtual borderline in the middle. In such way the borderline between Lithuanian and Russian parts will be integrated into the entire storytelling. The user will see virtual borderline on the screen, scrolling to the right would unveil the Lithuanian part of the story, scrolling to the left would picture the Russian part.
Blurred Border will be released as four portraits reflecting the four seasons on the Curonian Spit. The fisherman is linked with autumn; a writer with winter; a forester with spring and a taxi driver is the most active in summer.
Hijacked Life
In 1970, Lithuanian small-time criminal Pranas Brazinskas smuggles sawed-off shotguns onto a Soviet domestic flight and, with the help of his terrified 15-year-old son Algirdas, hijacks the Aeroflot plane and orders it east of the Black Sea. One stewardess - 19-year-old Nadia Kurchenko - is killed, several crew members are wounded, and the aircraft makes an emergency landing in Trabzon, Turkey, where Ankara becomes a Cold War flashpoint caught between Moscow and Washington. Turkey shocks the world by refusing Soviet extradition demands, trying the hijackers locally, and then depositing them in a years-long limbo that is part jail, part political chess piece. While Soviet propaganda canonises Nadia as a hero and the KGB punishes the Brazinskas family in the USSR, the Lithuanian diaspora quietly orchestrated the father-son’s escape: through Rome and Caracas, and, by 1976, they set foot on USA soil.
The promised freedom stagnates. Renaming himself “Albert White,” Algirdas endures fixed marriage, lack of money, and constant reinvention, while Pranas - paranoid and dominant - stockpiles guns and rehearses for a KGB hit that never comes. Their claustrophobic apartment becomes the new cockpit: the father still at the controls, the son his captive co-pilot. On 5 February 2002, after three decades of chronic control, Albert snaps and kills his father, then dials 9-1-1 and calmly claims self-defense. Convicted of second-degree murder, he serves twenty years in a California prison, reading Stoic philosophy and wondering whether violence can ever buy freedom.
Released from the prison in 2023, Albert now walks the streets of LA homeless - a free man in legal terms yet forever chained to a hijacking that destroyed three lives: the stewardess who died for it, the father who weaponised it, and the son who can never outrun it. The story closes where it began: a man, a dream, and a question - what is freedom worth when the cost is everything?
The promised freedom stagnates. Renaming himself “Albert White,” Algirdas endures fixed marriage, lack of money, and constant reinvention, while Pranas - paranoid and dominant - stockpiles guns and rehearses for a KGB hit that never comes. Their claustrophobic apartment becomes the new cockpit: the father still at the controls, the son his captive co-pilot. On 5 February 2002, after three decades of chronic control, Albert snaps and kills his father, then dials 9-1-1 and calmly claims self-defense. Convicted of second-degree murder, he serves twenty years in a California prison, reading Stoic philosophy and wondering whether violence can ever buy freedom.
Released from the prison in 2023, Albert now walks the streets of LA homeless - a free man in legal terms yet forever chained to a hijacking that destroyed three lives: the stewardess who died for it, the father who weaponised it, and the son who can never outrun it. The story closes where it began: a man, a dream, and a question - what is freedom worth when the cost is everything?
ARMOR, RUST AND POWER
In Armor, Rust and Power, two worlds collide in the global,
multi-billion-dollar scene of tank collecting. On one side is
Dan Starks, a retired American billionaire who is pouring
his fortune into building the world's largest working tank
museum in rural Wyoming. On the other is Naglis Vilbikas
– a Lithuanian technology teacher, scraping together
rusty parts in the hope of restoring just one tank from
scratch. Inspired by Mark Twain's The Prince and the
Pauper, the film contrasts wealth-driven ambition with
raw determination, questioning what truly makes a man
feel valued in a world in which traditional masculinity finds
itself on shifting ground.
multi-billion-dollar scene of tank collecting. On one side is
Dan Starks, a retired American billionaire who is pouring
his fortune into building the world's largest working tank
museum in rural Wyoming. On the other is Naglis Vilbikas
– a Lithuanian technology teacher, scraping together
rusty parts in the hope of restoring just one tank from
scratch. Inspired by Mark Twain's The Prince and the
Pauper, the film contrasts wealth-driven ambition with
raw determination, questioning what truly makes a man
feel valued in a world in which traditional masculinity finds
itself on shifting ground.