Baltic Film Competition Best Director

Translator Ilona and tour guide Matas plan to move in together after two years of dating. They finally settle into a new apartment just as building renovations begin. The constant drilling and banging soon drain all inspiration.

Ilona’s sharp-tongued mother visits to voice her regrets and unfulfilled hopes, comparing her daughter to former classmate Laura, who has defended her PhD and is now engaged. Ilona could have made many different choices. She dislikes Matas’s reminder that she is about to turn thirty and gently resists the idea of marriage.

One sunny day, a Ukrainian construction worker named Oleg accidentally steps into Ilona’s life from the neighbouring balcony – and profoundly changes it. A painter before the war, he knows of Čiurlionis, Lithuania’s most famous artist and composer. To impress him, Ilona pretends to be a poet. Their meetings become more frequent; the air thickens with unspoken attraction. Oleg urges her to talk to Matas if she truly loves him.

“Runner” (PÖFF Baltic Competition prize winner, 2021) star Žygimantė Jakštaitė and Šarūnas Zenkevičius (seen in a strikingly different role in “Borderline”) portray a modern couple caught in doubt and the struggle for love, while cinematographer Vytautas Katkus (director of “The Visitor”) delivers another visionary piece of handheld magic – full of reflections and shadows.

Edvinas Pukšta