Lithuania: Last News

Rating: 2/5PRURating: 2/5Sue Perkins has hit by accident on a whole new format for a detective series. Give her old Bake Off chum Mel Giedroyc a box of family photos and let her go to work. She’s a natural sleuth, a Mel Marple.

glitziest film festival is sometimes portrayed as a bubble – and to some extent, that is true. One could easily have spent a week on the Croisette without noticing that the host country has a whole new government, and only the second woman prime minister in its history.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentREinvent International Sales has closed major territory sales on “UFO Sweden,” a science fiction movie adventure from Crazy Pictures, a Swedish film collective whose past credits includes the 2018 hit movie “The Unthinkable.”Described as a mix between “X-Files” and “Stranger Things,” “UFO Sweden” is set in a small town and follows a teenage rebel placed in foster care, who suspects that her father is not dead, but has been kidnapped by UFOs. With the help from a UFO association, she is determined to find out the truth.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentREinvent Intl. Sales has scored sales across its slate, including Alex Herron’s horror film “Leave” and Sanna Lenken’s “Comedy Queen.”“Comedy Queen,” which world-premiered at Berlin and won the Crystal Bear in the Generation section, has sold to Benelux (In the Air), France (Les Films Du Preau), Spain (Yoda Films), Poland (Vivarto), Hungary (ADS Service), Lithuania (Scanorama) and the former Yugoslavia (Fivia).“Comedy Queen” follows Sasha, a 13-year-old girl who dreams of becoming a stand-up comedian.

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentBrazilian writer-director Caru Alves de Souza, whose second feature, “My Name Is Baghdad,” won the Crystal Bear for best film at Berlin’s 2020 Generation 14plus sidebar, has been selected for the Pop Up Film Residency 2022 program.Alves de Souza will use the Residency to develop “Lonely Hearts,” her new fiction feature.The award was announced Saturday at Cannes Marché du Film by Josephine Bourgois and Rachel do Valle, executive director and program director at Brazil’s Projeto Paradiso, which is backing the prize, and former Cannes Critics’ Week programmer Matthieu Darras, creator of Pop Up.Alves de Souza will participate in the mentoring program for the development of a fiction feature, which runs over three weeks, in August, in Vilnius, Lithuania. She will receive a Paradiso Scholarship and travel support in the amount of Reais 5,000 ($1,000), in addition to becoming part of the Paradiso Talent Network.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic“Mariupolis 2” is a document of the war in Ukraine that’s as raw and real as they come. It was made by the Lithuanian filmmaker and anthropologist Mantas Kvedaravičius, who was killed, on April 2, during the siege of Mariupol (he was taken captive and shot by Russian soldiers).

Volodymyr Zelenskyy outshone all of the stars at the Cannes Film Festival after he addressed the opening night crowd of actors and filmmakers, delivering an emotional plea on behalf of his war-torn country. Appearing via video, Zelenskyy had festival-goers dabbing their eyes.“We continue fighting,” Zelenskyy said.

supports HTML5 videoFor those of us not lucky enough to have watched Eurovision in person, despair not, for we’ve got a view of the action that shows just how pandemonium ran through the audience when Kalush Orchestra was announced the winner on Saturday night.The folk-rap group beat UK’s Sam Ryder, who was an early leader with his banger Space Man, on Saturday night in Turin Italy, coming out on top with 631 points to Ryder’s 466 with their song Stefania.And boy did they celebrate.

Ukraine won Eurovision 2022 in a historic evening in Turin.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorLeading arthouse sales company The Match Factory has acquired distribution rights to murdered Lithuanian filmmaker Mantas Kvedaravičius’ documentary “Mariupolis 2,” ahead of the film’s premiere next week at the Cannes Film Festival as a Special Screening.Kvedaravičius was captured and murdered by the Russian army in Mariupol, Ukraine in early April. The film was co-directed by Kvedaravičius’ fiancée Hanna Bilobrova, who was with him at the time of his death, and was able to bring back the footage filmed there, and edited it with his editor Dounia Sichov.The Match Factory worked with Kvedaravičius on his debut feature “Barzakh,” which played in the Berlinale in 2011.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentItalian state broadcaster RAI’s president Marinella Soldi, who is a former CEO of Discovery Networks Southern Europe, has a longstanding rapport with the Eurovision Song Contest. It’s the show on which she remembers first seeing ABBA, one of her favorite pop bands, “with their white flares.” Soldi more recently was mesmerized by Måneskin and the swagger of the Italian glam-rock band, which by triumphing last year at Eurovision, against all odds, caused RAI to be host broadcaster of the 2022 edition of this massive event. Måneskin will be performing during the grand finale on Saturday.In a rare interview, Soldi spoke to Variety about the politically heated lead-up to this year’s contest and the European Broadcasting Union’s decision to ban Russia from competing at Eurovision after the country’s invasion of Ukraine.

Zack Sharf The Cannes Film Festival has announced the final movie from Lithuanian filmmaker Mantas Kvedaravičius will be screened during the upcoming 2022 edition. Kvedaravičius was filming a Ukraine-set documentary on location in the city of Mariupol when he was killed in early April amid Russia’s invasion of the country.

Eurovision Song Contest.The act are currently favourites to win the overall contest, which takes place this week in Turin amid Russia’s continued invasion of Ukraine.Last night (May 10) the first semi-finals were held ahead of Saturday’s (May 14) grand final, with Ukraine progressing along with Armenia, Greece, Iceland, Lithuania, Moldova, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and Switzerland.Kalush Orchestra frontman Oleh Psiuk said following their qualification: “We understand we need to stay focused because we want to promote Ukrainian culture and let everyone know about it, This is our goal.”Here's the 10 qualifiers from the First Semi-Final! #Eurovision #ESC2022 pic.twitter.com/qxqezFuY9g— Eurovision Song Contest (@Eurovision) May 10, 2022Kalush Orchestra, a rap group who formed in 2019, replaced Ukraine’s original entrant Alina Pash, who withdrew from the competition in February, for Eurovision 2022. The group’s track ‘Stefania’ is an ode to powerful mothers.Speaking to NME this week, Psiuk explained how their taking part was a “huge responsibility”, given the ongoing war with Russia.“To represent Ukraine in the international arena is always a responsibility, but to represent it during the war is just the highest responsibility possible,” he said.“The song [‘Stefania’] was composed and dedicated to my mother, but after the war the song has acquired lots of nuances because a lot of people are perceiving it as if Ukraine is my mother,” said Psiuk.

Pussy Riot’s Masha Alyokhina has escaped from Russia as president Vladimir Putin continues to crack down on dissidents in the country.Alyokhina, along with her bandmates, has been arrested and imprisoned multiple times over the past decade and more for publicly protesting Putin’s rule, most recently last year when she was detained for 48 hours after attending protests encouraging others to protest on social media.Amid the continued Russian invasion of Ukraine, a new story in The New York Times reveals that Alyokhina was under house arrest and, when authorities decided to turn that into a 21-day jail sentence last month, she decided to flee Russia.The story outlines Alyokhina’s escape, which included posing as a food courier and being placed on Russia’s wanted list after being refused entry into Belarus on account of her Russian passport having been confiscated by authorities.The report then reveals that Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson was able to assist Alyokhina in getting her a travel document from a European country that allowed her to travel freely from Russia to the EU. It adds that she has now travelled to Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania.“I still don’t understand completely what I’ve done,” she said in the piece.

Shanina Shaik has announced that she is pregnant with her first child with her boyfriend, Matthew Adesuyan.The supermodel revealed the happy news on Sunday, which was Mother's Day in Australia and USA, as she shared snaps of her blossoming bump from a stunning photoshoot. "To the new love of my life, Thank you for choosing me to be your Mum. I have always wanted you for as long as I can remember, and at times my patience was tested," the 31 year old Victoria's Secret began.

A Dundee student has been selected as the UK’s only ambassador for a special Holocaust memorial event.

Spain has confirmed that Covid-19 travel rules will remain in place for UK flyers until May 15.

Tristan Priimägi Elmo Nüganen’s historical crime thriller “Melchior the Apothecary” has become the first Estonian film to cross the 50,000 admission mark at the local box office in the two years of the pandemic. The film, which was released by Hea Film on April 11, tops the box office with 57,456 admissions, according to Film New Europe. The pic is the initial instalment in a trilogy – the first time a movie trilogy has been produced in Estonia.

Marta Balaga The Ukrainian Institute has issued an official letter to the Cannes Film Festival and French director Michel Hazanavicius asking them to rename his opening night movie “Z,” which the org claims is a pro-war symbol of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.In Russia, “Z” is considered a pro-war symbol that has also been used in pro-Russian demonstrations across Europe. The symbol has recently been adopted by some Russian figures taking part in world events, such as gymnast Ivan Kuliak who, while in Qatar for a World Cup event, sported a “Z” on his chest while standing on a podium next to Ukrainian athlete Illia Kovtun.

Emilio Mayorga “Journey to Yourland,” “Lumières!” and “Sex Symbols” proved standouts  at Cartoon Next, a new event launched by European association Cartoon Media to explore the ever more hybrid reality of the animation industry as well as other current cutting edge trends.VR, Extended Reality (XR), cross-media and IP extensions were the event’s buzzwords.In a format similar to Cartoon Springboard, which focuses on a new generation of animators, at Next, creators and producers also pitch projects to a bevy of high-profile experts who offer suggestions on how to improve development or the titles’ completion.Among such experts at Cartoon Next’s inaugural edition were Japhet Asher­, founder of U.K. consultancy and IP creation company Polarity Reversal; Orion Ross, VP of original programming and animation at Disney EMEA; Aymeric Castaing, founder of French XR company  Umanimation; Luce Grosjean, who launched France’s Miyu Distribution, devoted to young talents and student films; producer Sébastien Onomo at France’s Special Touch Studios; and producer Anna Schur, head of content at Spanish gaming animation company ZeptoLab.

A Heart of Midlothian fan is hoping to sit in every seat at Tynecastle Stadium after being inspired by the tragic death of Marius Zaliukas.