On the festive evening, viewers had the opportunity not only to be the first in Lithuania to see this film on the big screen but also to congratulate the creators on an exceptional achievement – Lithuania officially selected this film as the country’s contender for the prestigious US Academy Awards “Oscar” nomination.
Even before the film screening, the evening’s guests and the creative team smiled for photographers on the premiere carpet. However, the film’s lead actress Elena Jakštaitė did not appear at the event – at the same time, she was performing in a theater premiere.
Photo gallery:
Premiere of the drama “Divorce During the War”
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What is the film about?
The drama “Divorce During the War” takes viewers to present-day Vilnius. At the center are Marija and Vytas, whose life from the outside looks idyllic: the couple lives in a flawlessly designed home and raises a daughter together. She is an ambitious head of a large advertising agency department, and he is a film director still searching for himself.
However, behind the perfect facade lies a crisis: Marija feels deeply unhappy. When the woman finally decides to divorce, she chooses the worst possible time for an open conversation. An uncomfortable, emotion-filled phase begins, with no clear instructions, and the rising tension raises a fundamental question – does divorce always mean defeat, or on the contrary, does it lead to something better?
Approaching the film premiere, the band “Šeškės” prepared a special surprise – they revived a song specially created for the cinema screen, “I Need You,” which plays both in A. Blaževičius’s first film “The Saint” (2016) and in his latest work.
VIDEO: Šeškės “I Need You” (soundtrack of the film “Divorce During the War”)
Šeškės “I Need You” (soundtrack of the film “Divorce During the War”)
Star team on screen and the director’s style
The film features leading and prominent roles played by recognized Lithuanian actors: Žygimantė Elena Jakštaitė (“Runner”), Marius Repšys (“The Saint”), the rapidly popular young Amelija Adomaitytė, as well as Indrė Patkauskaitė, Larisa Kalpokaitė, and Rimantas Bagdzevičius.
This is the third feature film by Andrius Blaževičius. The director’s previous films “The Saint” and “Runner” won a total of 8 “Silver Crane” awards in Lithuania and received wide international recognition – “Runner” was recognized as the best film at the Riga Film Festival and awarded at the Tallinn “Black Nights” festival as the best film from the Baltic countries.
Triumph at the “Sundance” festival and praise in the foreign press
The world premiere of the film took place in the USA – at the prestigious “Sundance” festival, where the film competed in the “World Cinema Dramatic Competition” program and won the best director award, and is currently being shown in US cinemas.
World premiere of A. Blaževičius’s film “Divorce During the War” at the “Sundance” festival
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The film was also highly praised by major foreign publications and film critics:
The Wall Street Journal described the film as a masterful “blend of dark humor and drama.”
Indiewire emphasized: “The director turns a marital crisis into an awkwardly funny mutual war drama.”
Rolling Stone wrote in its review: “What begins as a realistic domestic drama about a failed marriage gradually turns into a biting satire about the testing of values.”
The Film Verdict film critic Kevin Jagernauth highlighted the film’s moral depth: “In Andrius Blaževičius’s excellent new film, it is considered what it means to realize that you are not the good person you thought you were. How easily the privileged fight for their comfort. And how sometimes what is right is pushed aside for the sake of what is easiest.”
