THE BEARERS OF MEMORIES - Miglė Križinauskaitė-Bernotienė

_{The Bearers of Memories}
_{Short experimental documentary | 2020 | 13’17” | 16mm to HD/DCP | Color/B&W | Sound

Synopsis}
_{With every moment – one more memory. But memory sometimes goes blind and what is left becomes hazy.

Director | Miglė Križinauskaitė-Bernotienė
Producers | Rūta Jekentaitė, Miglė Križinauskaitė-Bernotienė
Director of Photography | Nojus Drąsutis
Sound Designer | Rūta Girnytė
Composer | Agnė Matulevičiūtė
Editor | Miglė Križinauskaitė-Bernotienė}

_Awards
_{Ribalta Experimental Film Festival (Golden Arrow Award for Best Film);}
_{Istanbul International Experimental Film Festival (Special mention: Best Experimental Documentary);
Malatesta Short Film Festival (Special mention: Best Experimental);
Burnt Experimental Video Art and Film Festival (Audience Choice Award);
Austin Arthouse Film Festival (Deren Award for Dreamiest Film).}

_Screenings
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_{25 FPS Festival;}
_{Kinam, International Film Festival;}
_{Transient Visions 10th Anniversary Program;}
_{(S8) Mostra de Cinema Periférico;}
_{European Film Festival of Houlgate;}
_{Helios Sun Poetry Film Festival;}
_{EFEA – Experimental Film East Anglia;}
_{Nonantola Film Festival;}
_{Paroda NE TIK AKYS: GEISMAS;}
_{Baltic Experimental Films: screening at Cinematheque quebecoise – Montreal;}
_{Baltic Experimental Films: screening at PIX Film Gallery – Toronto;}
_{Oodaaq Festival 2022;}
_{Experimental films Online;}
_{Film festival “Šoblė”;}
_{Ribalta Experimental Film Festival;}
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_{European Film Festival “Go Debut”;}
_{PRISME #4 – Argentique du futur;}
_{Paradox International Short Film Festival;}
_{Fotogenia, Film Poetry & Divergent Narratives Festival, Vol. 3;}
_{Burnt Experimental Video Art and Film Festival;}
_{NewFilmmakers NY screening event;}
_{Malatesta Short Film Festival;}
_{Festval Internationas Signes de Nuit – Paris;}
_{Lithuanian Shorts: Cinematic Connections screening in Wien;}
_{VASTLAB Experimental;}
_{Alternative Film/Video Festival;}
_{11th Pune Short Film Festival;}
_{Istanbul International Experimental Film Festival;}
_{BIDEODROMO International Experimental Film and Video Festival;}
_{Bogotá Experimental Film Festival;}
_{Experimental Superstars festival;}
_{GRRL HAUS;}
_{THE FRINGE International Arts Festival;}
_{Engauge Experimental Film Festival;}
_ULTRAcinema;
_{Transient Visions: Festival of the Moving Image;}
_{29th DokumentART Festival;}
_{Laterale Film Festival;}
_{We Make Movies International Film Festival;}
_{Experimental Film Festival Process;}
_{VI Moscow International Experimental Film Festival;}
_{International experimental film and arts festival “Suspaustas laikas”;}
_{Beirut International Women Film Festival;}
_{Festival ECRÃ;}
_{OBSKURA – Analog film festival;}
_{10th International Video Poetry Festival;}
_{SPHERE DIGITAL → WORLD CINEMA CARNIVAL;}
_{Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival;}
_{Underneath the Floorboards;}
_{Berlin Revolution Film Festival;}
_{Panoramica, Independent Film Festival;}
_{New York Nil Gallery;}
_{New York Indie Doc Fest.}
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_{Fisura, International Festival of Experimental Film & Video;}
_{The 3rd Meihodo International Youth Visual Media Festival;}
_{Harkat 16mm Film Festival;}
_{Kinoskop – Analog Experimental Film festival.}

_Review
_{A special mention is given to “The bearers of memories” for its narrative poetry, its refined temporal dilation and the astute use of sounds, at the same time dissonant and evocative.The work presents us with an emotional and subjective story, capable of echoing Tarkovskij’s intense cinema, among others, and of evoking strong emotions in the viewer. A cosmogonic journey of whispers and illuminating undergrowths, with roots firmly planted in tradition and branches moving towards a stateless, pure, timeless lyricism. – Jury of Malatesta Short Film Festival 2021}
_{The past is forever present, bloodlines running through us, those from whom we descend at once both near and far away. This programme meditates on family bonds, the love and the trauma situated therein, exposing both the potentials and the limitations of the moving image to capture intergenerational experience in its myriad forms. In Miglė Križinauskaitė-Bernotienė’s The Bearers of Memories, what the filmmaker remembers of her late grandmother is being slowly eroded by time, the starting point to a contemplative search of rural landscapes, an old photograph, an abandoned dwelling, and the faces of others, all strikingly captured on 16mm and enhanced by an intricate acoustic score. – Ali Jonathan}

_{There are quality ‘cinexperiments’ to be found at SPHERE ~ WORLD CINEMA CARNIVAL 2021 (which is playing until May 23rd), and for the starters, I’ll single out a beautiful 16mm film which premiered at last year’s edition of Kinoskop. The Bearers of Memories (Miglė Križinauskaitė, 2020) Inspired by the Tuvan people’s ‘inverted’, somewhat paradoxical perception of time according to which the past lays before us, whereas the future follows us, always behind our backs, ‘The Bearers of Memories’ is a meditative tone-poem that questions the frail and fickle nature of memories.} _{A film of highly sophisticated audio-visual poetry, it amalgamates ethereal portraits of elderly women, impressionistic interpretations of river scenery, extreme close-ups turned into abstract paintings, and delicately captured details of vintage interiors into a soft tapestry of hazily evocative imagery interwoven with silky strings of Tuvans’ traditional music and ambient droning. Unfolding at a languorous pace, it lulls the viewer into a dreamlike state, tucking you under a blanket of nostalgic familiarity, mysterious sensitivity and deeply felt melancholia reminiscent of the work of Šarūnas Bartas. Its beauty grows with repeated viewings. – Nikola Gocić}

_{Miglė Križinauskaitė’s The Bearers of Memories is a languid, meditatively shot tractat of sorts on the nature of memory, which uses private mythology, spaces and landscapes, and the act of photography, while the beliefs and music of the Tuvan people are beautifully integrated to expand the atmosphere of the experimental documentary narrative. – Marko Milicevic}

_{If looking ahead we see the past, what are we seeing right now? And if behind us, therefore, there is the future, how should we interpret those images that we have not seen because we are standing in front of them? Swollen eyes with things crossed by time; a young woman’s hair – barely outlined – conceals her gaze: in this perspective we are looking. And we are given the beauty of a sea of grass, both terrigenous and marine: it is an absolute image, without any ties, a shred of another time. This green sea flows, as well as pictures in a darkroom, feet in the water, the visions of a blurred tomorrow, the changes of light on the curtains. The eye emerges from the revealing bath: it is not the subject-that-looks but the object of non-vision, which can be recalled only through words, capable of bearing, of becoming, therefore, bearers of memory. – Lateral Film Festival}

_{Magistrančių Miglės Križinauskaitės-Bernotienės „Prisiminimų nešėjai“ ir Elenos Kairytės „Mėnulis“ – dokumentiniai filmai, labai artimi lietuvių poetinei dokumentikai (tai kartai, kuriai priklauso Audriaus Stonio kūryba) – tai lėto laiko pasakojimai, kur kalbama ne žodžiais, o vaizdais. „Prisiminimų nešėjus“ režisierė pradeda pasakojimu apie tuvių tautą, suvokiančią laiką visiškai kitaip, nei mes – praeitis jiems yra kelias pirmyn. Senyvų žmonių portretai stambiais planais vizualiame režisierės pasakojime liejasi su gamtos žalumos ir tekančios upės vaizdais – taip konstruojama istorija apie praėjusio laiko ir ateities sankirtą. – Elena Jasiūnaitė}