Baltic Pride 2013 Programme

Information regarding the march “For equality”!!!

The Lithuanian Gay League (LGL) is happy to inform you that the March for Equality will take place on Gediminas Avenue on 27 July 2013 (Saturday) between 1 PM and 4 PM. As the main organizer of the event, we are committed to ensuring the safety of the participants and the good atmosphere in the course of the march itself. Therefore we are providing you with the following information with regards to the logistics of the Baltic Pride 2013 March for Equality. You can find it HERE.

Programme for download:
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All events take place in Vilnius, Lithuania

13 - 21 July

Exhibition: I Am the Other

venckus_webPhotography exhibition by Remigijus Venckus

A collection of nude photos created between 2007 and 2013, where the artist invites to meet the male body as the Other, who is only hinted at in Lithuanian public discourse. The artist’s main and newest photo series I Am the Other explores truths discussed in the Bible. In his other photography series, the artist uses the power of visual art to explore the sexuality and intimacy of the male body.

Organised by Meno Duobė. Curator: Monika Šlančauskaitė

Location: Vilniaus Kamerinis theater, Konstitucijos pr. 23B

23 July - 6 August

Exhibition: From Dusk till Dawn – 20 years of LGBT Freedom in Lithuania

Adomas_Danusevicius_Tapsmas_mazuma_aliejus_ant_drobes_140x170_cm_2012“From Dusk till Dawn” is the first exhibition of queer history and culture in Lithuania, showing pivotal moments of LGBT activity and related art projects from 1993 till 2013. The historical documentation (photographs, TV reportages, publications) together with art works reveal the political, social and individual struggle for equal rights and recognition. The exhibition combines anthropological and visual perspectives and invites the viewer to follow an interactive timeline.

The exhibition spaces create a symbolically subversive context. The CAC basement is a reminder of marginal queer places of the 1990s and stands for a metaphor of the closet. Now it is open to everybody willing to explore queer reflections in contemporary Lithuanian art: manifestations of different sexualities, homoerotic passion, censorship, performative bodies, marginalisation, living together.

The Reading Room is a place for active remembering, being together, spending time reading and discussing. Queer narratives spread out from the timeline to the walls, windows, tables and shelves of the library. (De)constructions of historical context happens in the present together with readings of queer poetry. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue in English and Lithuanian.

Curator: Laima Kreivytė, assistant: Dalia Mikonytė, architect: Julija Reklaitė

Location: Contemporary Art Centre, Vokiečių g. 2

More information here and here.

Parallel event: Photography exhibition by Aušra Volungė at Marija and Jurgis Šlapeliai House-Museum, Pilies g. 40

24 July - 7 August

Photography exhibition by Aušra Volungė

In 2001-2002 Aušra Volungė rented a flat in Kaunas street together with her drag queen friends.

She documented mundane performances of femininity with empathy and fascination. The photographer shares her close observations from the position of an insider, continuing Nan Goldin’s tradition of intimate photography.

Curator: Laima Kreivytė

Opening: 24 July 17:00

Location: Marija and Jurgis Šlapeliai House-Museum, Pilies g. 40

More information here.

25 July - 1 August

Film Festival: Kitoks Kinas

kitoks kinasThe second LGBT film festival Kitoks Kinas is taking place in Vilnius on 25 July –1 August 2013. The programme includes 18 fiction and documentary films which are screened in original language with Lithuanian and English subtitles. Admittance to screenings and festival events is completely free!

More about the festival, films and schedule: www.kitokskinas.lt.

Location: Skalvija Cinema, A. Goštauto g. 2/15

25-27 July

Baltic Pride 2013 by Night

Official Baltic Pride 2013 Parties are hosted in SOHO Club

Thursday 25 July from 22:00

Friday 26 July from 21:00 (Featuring BETTY)

Saturday 27 July from 22:00

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Friday 19 July

18:00 Banner Workshop

Get creative and make your own banner for the March for Equality on Saturday 27 July!

Location: LGBT Centre, A. Jakšto g. 22-15

Wednesday 24 July

13:00-18:00 Queer Zine Fair

zine

QZF is a fair for independent publications with a queer sensibility. If you have a zine or publication with which you would like to participate in the fair, send us an email to joana@gay.lt with your name, title and price.

Zines from around the world, talks and workshops.

Location: Contemporary Art Centre Reading Room, Vokiečių g. 2

More information here and here.

19:00 Literature reading with Eileen Myles

newMyles

Photo by Leopoldine Core

Eileen Myles is a poet and writer from New York City who has produced more than twenty volumes of poetry, fiction, nonfiction and performance pieces over the last three decades. Winner of the 2011 Lambda award for lesbian fiction.

Location: Contemporary Art Centre Reading Room, Vokiečių g. 2

Language: English

Thursday 25 July

16:00 Presentation: Gender Equality Index

The European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE)’s presentation will focus on presenting the Gender Equality Index, a composite indicator that synthesises the complexity of gender equality into a user-friendly and easily interpretable measure.

The presentation will focus on the Index results and the value it adds to provide an overview of how far or close the EU and its Member States have come towards achieving gender equality.

Subsequently, the session will outline the key messages arising from this first Gender Equality Index as well as highlight the existing data gaps in particular in the domains measuring Violence and Intersecting Inequalities.

More information here.

Language: English

Location: European Institute for Gender Equality Resource and Documentation Centre Entry Point, Vilniaus g. 10

Friday 26 July

10:00-16:00 International Human Rights Conference: Towards a European Roadmap for LGBT Equality

The one-day international human rights conference on “Towards a European Roadmap for LGBT equality” will be organized in the framework of the Baltic Pride 2013 events on 26 July 2013. This is a unique chance for us to have a look on the progress of LGBT* rights across Europe and assess the work that is still to be done to ensure that EU citizenship rights are followed.

The conference will address the following issues:

(1) Challenges faced by the Baltic States (i.e. Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) and the European countries in incorporating the LGBT* dimension in policy development processes.

(2) Sharing the best practices in the field of LGBT* inclusion;

(3) Monitoring implementation of the Committee of Ministers’ Recommendation on LGBT* rights;

(4) EU roadmap for LGBT* equality;

The official languages of the conference are English and Lithuanian (i.e. synchronized translation).

Registration required, for more information please write to office@gay.lt

13:00 Workshop: LGBTQ youth on EU youth policy agenda?

IGLYO presents a workshop on inclusion of LGBTQ youth and student issues in the EU Youth policy-making, also presenting IGLYO’s work in the policy and advocacy field, the latest research on LGBTQ youth and student issues. Come and discuss your ideas on how better to serve and represent LGBTQ youth and students around Europe.

Location: European Institute for Gender Equality Resource and Documentation Centre Entry Point, Vilniaus g. 10

Language: English

 

15:00 Workshop: People like ME

Young activists from Mozaika (Latvia) and Estonian LGBT Association present a workshop where you’ll be able to meet other LGBTIQ people, encourage each other, soak up positive energy and strengthen your identity.

Location: European Institute for Gender Equality Resource and Documentation Centre Entry Point, Vilniaus g. 10

Language: English

21:00 Film: “She Male Snails” presented by director E. M. Bergsmark

Part of Kitoks Kinas LGBT Film Festival programme.

pojktanten_963320cShe Male Snails (Pojktanten), 2012 / Sweden, Denmark / Ester Martin Bergsmark, Cast: Ester Martin Bergsmark, Varg Holmdahl, Eli Levén, Documentary, Swedish, with English and Lithuanian subtitles., 1.15

Ester Martin Bergsmark and Eli Levén identify as trans. They share memories of the violence and cruelties they experienced growing up as an in-between person. Much of their discussion unfolds in voiceover as they languidly pose naked together in an old-fashioned bathtub, shaving each other’s legs.

This film is a very intimate telling about universal things: how it is to categorize and be categorized and what happens when people do not fit into boxes.

More information here.

Location: Skalvija Cinema, A. Goštauto g. 2/15

Saturday 27 July

13:00 March for Equality

The main event of the Pride week! Check this page or Baltic Pride Facebook for instructions on where and when to gather!

If the Court will confirm our right to march on the Gediminas Avenue, there will be NO REQUIREMENT for prior registration in order to participate in the Baltic Pride March for Equality on 27 July 2013. We will provide further information on the logistics of the march next week via our social media channels and the website www.lgl.lt/bp. If you are planning to participate in the march with an organized group of people (i.e. more than 10 individuals), please inform us about that in advance through office@gay.lt. See you in the BALTIC PRIDE!!!

 

17:30 Film: “My Love” presented by director I. H. Andersen

Part of Kitoks Kinas LGBT Film Festival programme.

mylove.phpMy Love – The Story of Poul and Mai (My Love – Historien om Poul og Mai), 2012 / Denmark / Iben Haahr Andersen. Documentary, Danish, with English and Lithuanian subtitles, 1.05

A few years back Poul tragically lost everything he loved. From the ruins of his old life sprouts a whole new. At the age of 62 Poul finds the love of his life – Mai from Thailand. Poul experiences a kind of love he never has had before, and Mai decides to settle down in Denmark – far away from his children, who live with his sister in Thailand.

During six years of filming, the director has captured the development of Poul and Mai’s relationship – from crazy love to the challenges of everyday life together. With humour and wit she uncovers a story of courage to be one self, reminding us that it is never too late to change your life.

Location: Skalvija Cinema, A. Goštauto g. 2/15

Saturday 27 & 28 July

19:00: Play: The Interpreter – A Lithuanian National Patriotic Drama

Interpreter - PLAKATAS 2Free performance of the play ‘The Interpreter’ written by Laima Vincė and directed by Alicia Gian (USA) and Marius Mačiulis (LT). Seating is on a first come first serve basis and subject to capacity. Please arrive early for best seating. The house opens at 6:30.

Directors – Alicia Gian (USA)/ Marius Mačiulis (LT)
Playwright – Laima Vince
Stage Design – Angė Kupšytė
Costume Design – Indrė Budreckytė
Sound Design – Deimantė Ponelytė
Performance duration – 90 min. (without interval)
Actors:
Ridas Jasiulionis
Alina Leščinskienė
Arturas Varnas
Larisa Kalpokaitė
Laura Height (UK)
Renata Kutinaitė
Indrė Jaraitė
Tadas Gudaitis
Paulius Valaskevičius
Inga Filipovič

Knots are found in place of cut off tree limbs
Unfeeling, lifeless, blanketed in bark,
But still living, a part of the tree,
Their bodies decay, ever hardening,
Similar to stumps, to roots, to veins,
Their communion limited,
A slight touch of one another through bark,
Touching, trying, shifting closer 
To touch without touching                   (Virgis Malčius)

 

“We’ve already decided – we don’t talk about Lithuania when we’re together, because it’s cold there, it’s dark there, and it’s rains without stopping.”

Directors Alicia Gian and Marius Mačiulis say they labeled the bilingual production a “national patriotic drama” as a provocation – to make the audience reflect on what exactly this beloved motherland is. “She is like a young girl struggling to put on a national dress” Mačiulis comments. “Who will come and help her?”

They love their motherland from a distance, because each had their own reasons for leaving it. Adele could not support herself on a meagre retirement pension, so she went to England to find a job. Natasha was sold into sex slavery by her boyfriend. Joana left home hoping to find her true love. While Julius…

Julius used to believe in Lithuania, he shared in its euphoric experience of national liberation by helping it communicate with the English-speaking world. Twenty years later, he still does just that, but his Lithuania is very different now, scattered across the globe, though mostly over the British Isles. Julius lives in Buenos Aires with his Argentinian partner Xavier and every morning receives phone calls from welfare institutions in the UK, serving as an interpreter for fellow Lithuanians. They are the ones who personify Julius’s Lithuania – a homeless pensioner, an unemployed man abusing the British welfare system, a childhood friend named Joana with whom he used to play in a sand box underneath the singing pine trees. This childhood friend rekindles in Julius a nostalgia for his country while at the same time, reminds him of its betrayal. Joana stood aside when Julius became a victim of a hate crime in school. Perhaps, if she had come to him and wiped the blood off his face, he wouldn’t have left Lithuania. While communicating with Joana, regardless of distance, he rediscovers his Lithuanian identity which he left behind twenty years ago. Although Julius, played by Ridas Jasiulionis, sits thousands of kilometers away, he serves as the only channel of connection between Joana (Alina Leščinskienė) and the nurse (Laura Height) who treats her at the South London Women’s Health Clinic on nearly a daily basis. The two are bound together by a country neither of them has seen for years, and the more Julius thinks of it, all the more the distance between him and Xavier (Arturas Varnas) grows. It becomes harder and harder for Julius to maintain a professional distance between his work as a translator and his concern for his fellows citizens living abroad. Finally, he and Joana have to make peace with the difficulties of their past. A second chance – to wipe the blood away – can always be discovered.

 

Laima Vincė is an author, translator, poet, and journalist. For more than twenty years, Laima has been interested in the historical changes happening in the Baltic states. When Lithuania was still occupied by the Soviets, she came to study poetry translation with Marcelijus Martinaitis at Vilnius University and to participate in the Singing Revolution; in 2008 she published a book of memoirs entitled “Lenin’s Head on a Platter” about the experience. After 20 years, in 1994, she returned to Lithuania as part of the Fulbright scholar program to teach poetry translation theory and creative writing at Vilnius University and at Vytautas Magnus University. She currently translates contemporary Lithuanian poetry and prose into English. She has received more than one national American award for her work such as the prestigious National Endowment of the Arts award and a PEN translation award.

In 2012, a reading of the play “The Interpreter” was staged at the National Drama Theater as part of the Lithuanian playwriting festival “Versme.”

This production is a part of the Baltic Pride 2013 events program. Performances on July 27th and 28th are free to the public courtesy of the US Embassy of Vilnius.

Seating is limited. Please arrive early to find a seat. Doors opens at 6:30PM.

For more information on the production please visit www.vkamerinisteatras.lt

Language: Mixed language production – Lithuanian and English

Location: Vilniaus Kamerinis Teatras / Vilnius Chamber Theatre, Konstitucijos pr. 23B

More information here.

Sunday 28 July

16:15 José Arroyo’s lecture “Almodóvar’s cinema as gay cinema in the Spanish transition to democracy”

almdovar.phpIn 1975, the death of General Franco ended a near half-century dictatorship in Spain. As the country transitioned to democracy, it flowered with artistic life and movements. One of them, la Movida, started in Madrid and swept Spain, breaking aesthetic, sexual, and political taboos along the way. The early films of Pedro Almodóvar, one of la Movida’s best-known children, capture the spirit of transgression, anarchy, and enthusiasm of the time better than anything else.

José Arroyo is a lecturer at the University of Warwick (UK). His academic interests include representations of nationality and sexuality, Spanish cinema, and contemporary Hollywood. He is currently writing on Antonio Banderas and Javier Bardem, is a regular reviewer for BFI’s Sight and Sound magazine.

After the lecture (at 17:30) screening of the film “Labyrinth of Passion” (“Laberinto de pasiones”, dir. Pedro Almodóvar, Spain, 1982)

Part of Kitoks Kinas LGBT Film Festival programme.

Location: Skalvija Cinema, A. Goštauto g. 2/15

 

Tuesday 30 July

19:00 Queer Words – Poetry and Prose Readings

Lithuanian poets and writers present literature readings with a queer angle.

Location: Contemporary Art Centre Reading Room, Vokiečių g. 2

Language: Lithuanian

Wednesday 31 July

21:00 Kitoks Kinas LGBT Film Festival Closing

bitter.phpThe Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (Die bitteren Tränen der Petra von Kant)

1972 / Germany / Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Cast: Margit Carstensen, Hanna Schygulla, Katrin Schaake

Drama, German, with English and Lithuanian subt., 2.04, 16 mm)

A successful fashion designer Petra von Kant lives in an opulent home studio, along with her assistant Marlene, who silently endures all the whims and mistreatments of her boss. Enter Karin, a 23-year-old beauty who wants to be a model. Petra falls in love with Karin and invites her to move in, unleashing a wave of emotions, jealousy, and possessive love.

Part of Kitoks Kinas LGBT Film Festival programme.

Location: Skalvija Cinema, A. Goštauto g. 2/15