– The Lithuanian-Polish psychological drama follows an intimacy coordinator whose own relationship begins to unravel after she discovers her partner’s sex addiction
Lina Rastokaitė (left) and Darius Gumauskas in Hold Me Closer (© Audrius Solominas)
Lithuanian director and intimacy coordinator Irma Pužauskaitė is in production on her sophomore feature, titled Hold Me Closer, a 90-minute psychological drama written by Birutė Kapustinskaitė, and being produced by Rūta Petronytė and Justinas Pocius for Lithuania’s Smart Casual, with Poland’s Orka Film on board as co-producer. The project is budgeted at €1.31 million, with €1.25 million already secured, and is being made in Lithuanian and English, with an estimated release in 2027.
The film centres on Elena, an intimacy coordinator in her mid-forties, played by Lina Rastokaitė. Professionally, Elena is used to protecting actors’ boundaries and negotiating desire, consent and vulnerability on set. Privately, however, her certainties collapse when she discovers that her longtime partner Audrius, portrayed by Darius Gumauskas, has been unfaithful for years and is struggling with sex addiction. Determined to save the relationship, she chooses trust over escape, but her need for certainty slowly turns into surveillance, jealousy and emotional dependency. As her home life deteriorates, the intimate scenes she choreographs on set begin to mirror her own fears and desires.
According to Pužauskaitė, the film grew out of a personal loss that made her confront codependency, “often mistaken for selfless love”. She was also drawn to how “sex addiction uniquely challenges our understanding of love, intimacy and normalcy”, especially through the experience of partners who are pushed into shame, scrutiny and silence. Elena’s profession makes the contradiction all the sharper: she is an expert in boundaries on screen, but struggles to preserve her own in real life.
Alongside Rastokaitė and Gumauskas, the cast includes John Rafael Borchies Edholm as Gabriel, Emilis Vilys as Paulius, Gabija Bargailaitė as Julija, Agnė Kaktaitė as Ugnė, Oneida Kunsunga as Marija, Gintarė Parulytė as director Renata, Sergėjus Ivanovas as Kęstas, Domas Petronis as Karolis, Jolanta Dapkūnaitė as Vita and Vytautas Kaniušonis as Saulius.
Pužauskaitė’s debut feature, The 9th Step, enjoyed a successful festival and theatrical run, was acquired by HBO and secured eight nominations for Lithuania’s Silver Crane Awards. She has also worked as an intimacy coordinator with directors including Lasse Hallström, Marija Kavtaradze and Kristen Stewart. Kapustinskaitė, meanwhile, is a screenwriter, director and playwright whose credits include Sasha Was Here and who has headed the Screenwriting Department at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre since 2023.
The crew includes cinematographer Vytautas Plukas, production designer Ieva Rojūtė, costume designer Fausta Naujalė, intimacy coordinator Virginija Vareikytė, editor Armands Začs and sound designer Julius Grigelionis. Hold Me Closer has received support from the Lithuanian Film Centre, Creative Europe – MEDIA, LRT, the Vilnius Film Fund and the Polish Film Institute. The project also took part in LIM 2020, Les Arcs Co-production Village 2023, Meeting Point Vilnius 2025, the EAVE Marketing Workshop 2025 and Torino Green Lab 2025.
