History in Lithuanian Women’s Creative Documentaries: Critical and Personal Approach

Abstract

Over the last two decades, documentary has become an important tool of communication for Lithuanian women filmmakers since their number and visibility on national and international screens has grown significantly. Better gender balance in documentary-filmmaking noticeably increased the exposure to greater stylistic and thematic diversity, as well as paved the way for the new cinematic approaches to national and world history, politics, warfare, collective identity, and other issues traditionally assigned to men. This article examines creative documentaries directed by Giedrė Žickytė, Jūratė Samulionytė and Vilma Samulionytė, Martina Jablonskytė and Ramunė Rakauskaitė. First, it investigates how these films combine subjective, analytical, and critical approaches to examine and mediate complex phenomena in Lithuanian history. Second, it discusses how these women documentarists engage with the past and in what ways their approaches and languages differ from conventional historical documentaries.