CLASSIC CINEMA SECTION

Children from the Hotel “America”

It is the summer of 1972 in Kaunas, Lithuania. Even though rock and roll music is banned in the USSR, a small group of teenagers secretly listen to Luxembourg radio and dream… They all live in a house which was formerly a hotel, called “America”. Their innocent activities become of interest to the KGB agents who eventually try to tear up this group of teens. It is a film about the generation of Lithuanian “hippies’ and the events of the 1972 unrest in Lithuania (Kaunas‘s spring) when a 19-year-old high school student Romas Kalanta poured gasoline on himself and set himself on fire as a protest against the Soviet regime.

Classics O’Clock III, Thursday March 2, 20:30

English title:

Children from the Hotel “America”

Original title:

Vaikai is Amerikos viesbucio

Director:

Raimundas Banionis

Country:

Lithuania

Genre:

drama

Year:

1991

Length:

89’

Cast:

Augustas Šavelis, Gabija Jaraminaitė, Jūratė Onaitytė, Jurga Kasčiukaitė, Gediminas Karka, Linas Paugis, Rolandas Kazlas, Giedrius Čaikauskas, Arūnas Sakalauskas, Gražina Balandytė

A quote for the film:

People have forgotten God. They believe in nothing.

Selective list of festivals and awards:

Independent Lithuania’s first entry at the Berlinale Panorama section in 1991

Director’s bio:

Raimundas Banionis was born in 1957 in Panevėžys, Lithuania, in a family of drama theater great artists. He first appeared on the scene at the age of three –with an episodic role in Macbeth, continuing to play in various roles and films (Solaris - Andrey Tarkovsky). In 1980, he graduated from the Union State Institute of Cinematography in Moscow. Since 1991 he has been working as a director at UAB LITNEK, as well as working in theater and TV.