Do you have old photos from holidays in Palanga? Looking for who might have captured this view

The Palanga Municipality and the Lithuanian Film Centre have announced a search for photos of the interior of the legendary “Naglis” cinema.

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Perhaps you have the sought-after shots in your family albums?

As announced on the Palanga Municipality website, in 1959 the artist Jonas Jukonis created a monumental sgraffito panel “Neringa and Naglis” in the lobby of the “Naglis” cinema.

It depicts a seaside legend – the giants Neringa and Naglis, stylized waves, fishermen’s boats, a dragon, and seagulls flying over the sea. This is one of the earliest monumental interior works created using the sgraffito technique in post-war Lithuania and an important testimony to Lithuanian modernism and the cultural identity of the seaside.

For many years, the panel was hidden under layers of paint. Research revealed surviving fragments and confirmed its great artistic and cultural value.

Today, as the Regional Film Archive “Naglis” is being created on the site of the former cinema, efforts are being made to preserve the work so that the most authentic version of it will welcome visitors when the film archive opens its doors.

Currently, there is only one photo depicting the panel. The Lithuanian Film Centre is reaching out to everyone who has old photos of the Palanga “Naglis” cinema, especially images of the lobby or interior showing the panel.

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These could be photographs from family albums, slides, or other archival images. Even a seemingly insignificant photo can become an important source in restoring this unique work.

If you have photos or know where they might be stored, you are invited to contact via email at m.norvile@lkc.lt.

By the way, you can find D. Tarabildienė’s fairy tale about Naglis and Neringa here. This work popularized one version of the Neringa legend and contributed to the spread of this storyline in Lithuanian culture.

Later, this mythological story inspired Jonas Jukonis’s 1959 sgraffito panel created for the Palanga “Naglis” cinema.

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