– Spanning Special Screenings, Un Certain Regard and Critics’ Week, the Baltic country is poised to make a strong impression on the Croisette
Vesna by Rostislav Kirpičenko
Lithuania is set for a strong and multi-layered presence at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival (12-23 May), spanning high-profile premieres, international co-productions and emerging talent. Three titles in particular – Rostislav Kirpičenko’s Vesna, Viesturs Kairišs’ Ulya and Arnas Balčiūnas’ Class Photo – highlight the country’s growing clout across the European audiovisual ecosystem, both creatively and industrially.
Now confirmed in the Special Screenings sidebar, Vesna marks the feature debut of Lithuania-born, Ukraine-raised filmmaker Rostislav Kirpičenko. Conceived as a European co-production between Lithuania, Ukraine and France, the project arrives in Cannes as a completed film after previously circulating on the industry circuit, notably at the 2025 Baltic Event Co-Production Market in Tallinn.
Set in a small town in Russian-occupied south-eastern Ukraine, the film follows a young priest who covertly returns the bodies of executed civilians to their families, whilst grappling with the moral dilemma of whether preserving evidence of war crimes is worth the human cost. While rooted in the ongoing war, Vesna positions itself as an intimate ethical drama rather than a conventional war narrative, exploring resistance, faith and the fragile persistence of innocence.
The film is produced by Stasys Baltakis for Film Jam (Lithuania), alongside Ukrainian producers Vitalii Sheremetiev and Oleksii Zgonik, and Helena Pokorny for Matka Films (France). The project is backed by the Lithuanian Film Centre, which contributed approximately €400,000, and is supported by a pre-sale from LRT. On the French side, the production secured €150,000 from the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region and the Charente department. French distributor JHR Films has boarded the pic with a minimum guarantee and will handle its domestic release. At the time of writing, international sales are still being finalised.
Lithuania’s contribution is both financial and creative: the country doubles as a key shooting location, providing landscapes capable of recreating the Ukrainian setting, whilst also anchoring the project within a broader European co-production framework. In this sense, Vesna exemplifies how Lithuanian partners are increasingly central to politically urgent, internationally oriented cinema.
A different but equally significant strand of Lithuania’s presence can be found in Ulya, which will world-premiere in the Un Certain Regard section. Directed by Latvian filmmaker Viesturs Kairišs, the film is a co-production between Ego Media (Latvia), All Film (Estonia), Staron Film (Poland) and Tremora (Lithuania), with Lithuanian producer Ieva Norvilienė representing the country.
Set in 1964 Latvia, Ulya follows a teenage girl whose extraordinary height propels her into the world of competitive basketball, where she struggles to reconcile external expectations with her own desire for a “normal” life. Described by its producers as formally bold and visually distinctive, the film is shot in striking black-and-white, and blends coming-of-age drama with a more stylised cinematic language.
The project is backed by several national bodies, including the National Film Centre of Latvia, the Estonian Film Institute, the Polish Film Institute, the Lithuanian Film Centre, and the Cultural Endowment of Estonia. Paris-based sales firm B-Rated International is handling world sales, having boarded the film ahead of its Cannes debut.
The short film Class Photo completes the trio, having been selected for Critics’ Week’s short film competition. Directed by Arnas Balčiūnas, this 17-minute work follows a young man returning to his abandoned school, where an encounter with a former classmate triggers a quiet confrontation with memory, absence and the passage of time.
Staged by Morta Verbickaitė through M-Films (Lithuania), in collaboration with the National Film School of the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, the short is both a graduation project and a significant international breakthrough. The plot follows Ignas, who runs into a former classmate while revisiting his now-abandoned school. As they wander through corridors filled with conflicting memories, they try to capture what will soon be gone.
Notably, Class Photo was selected from a pool of approximately 2,400 submissions and will compete alongside professional productions rather than within a dedicated student section, marking a first of its kind for Lithuania and underscoring the rising visibility of its new generation of filmmakers.
Taken together, these three titles illustrate the breadth of Lithuania’s current positioning at Cannes, spanning politically urgent feature filmmaking (Vesna), ambitious regional co-productions (Ulya), and the emergence of young, new voices (Class Photo).
