Meet the festival’s Jury

Tomas Vengris

Tomas grew up the son of Lithuanian immigrants in Washington, DC. He received his BA from Columbia University and completed his M.F.A in directing at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles, CA.

In 2013, his AFI Thesis film, KALIFORNIJA, a film about Lithuanian immigrants, was a national finalist in the Student Academy Awards, distinguishing it as one of the best narrative student films in the United States. His most recent short, SQUIRREL, premiered in the 2015 Berlin International Film Festival.

Tomas has worked as an editor under several internationally acclaimed writer/directors, including Terrence Malick, Kelly Reichardt, and Lena Dunham. His feature editing work has garnered significant praise, most recently, the Grand Jury Prize at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival for I DON’T FEEL AT HOME IN THIS WORLD ANYMORE.

He is currently in post production on his feature directorial debut, MOTHERLAND.

Natalija Arlauskaitė

Natalija Arlauskaite – literary, film, and visual studies scholar, Professor at the Institute of International Relations and Political Science of Vilnius University. Her current academic interests include visual theory, forms of historical imagination, reflection on war atrocities in film and arts. She is an author of “Analysis of Hermetic Text: Structure of Semantic Space in Works by Velimir Khlebnikov” (2005), “Key-Concepts of Feminist Film Theory” (2010), “Native and Foreign Canons: Film Adaptations between Narrative Theory and Cultural Studies” (2014); editor-in-chief of book series “Writings on Film” (publishing house “Mintis”). Her new book in progress is on contemporary East European art and film projects dealing with WWII and socialist era image archive.

Eva Brazdžionytė

Three years Eva headed the MEDIA office of EU program Creative Europe under Lithuanian Film Centre. At the moment, she consults on creative content development and public financing strategies within the context of audio-visual industry of Europe. For ten year she works as culture manager, contributed to OKT / Vilnius city theatre, “Lithuanian Shorts” agency, film boutique “Pasaka”, Contemporary Art Centre in Vilnius, advertising agency “Not Perfect”. Eva holds a Master of Arts in Culture Management and Cultural Policy by UNESCO department of Vilnius Academy of Arts.