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Freedom
(Laisve)

Screening on Film
Directed by Sharunas Bartas.
With Valentinas Masalskis, Fatima Ennafloui, Axel Neumann.
France/Portugal/Lithuania, 2001, 35mm, color, 96 min.
French with English subtitles.

Unnamed landscapes and characters unable to communicate with one another form the abstract canvas upon which Bartas paints his visually arresting contemplation on freedom. Four ragged characters, three men and a young woman, board a boat in a fishing village. Unfortunately, a coast guard patrol doesn’t differentiate between the refugees, the drug couriers, and the regular passengers aboard. Everyone comes under fire. One of the protagonists is killed as the three survivors drift ashore onto a rocky beach in a North African locale. Without food or money, and with no common language among them, the trio seeks survival amongst the sounds of the wind, the sea, and birds. Viewers, too, must find a way to negotiate within the "freedom" of this starkly undefined world.

Part of film series

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The Films of Sharunas Bartas