The 9th Annual New York Baltic Film Festival (NYBFF) presented by Scandinavia House: The Nordic Center in America returns this November continuing its tradition of bringing the best new films from the Baltic region to New York audiences! Opening Night on Thursday, November 5 will feature the East Coast Premiere of A Goodnight Kiss (Irena), with director Giedrė Žickytė present for a film talk and Q&A.
The film will re-screen on Saturday, November 7 at 12:00 PM.
A Goodnight Kiss is an homage to a remarkable woman, Irena Veisaitė, and her unabating spirit. As Irena turns 92 in 2020, birthday greetings pour in for one of Lithuania’s wisest women, much adored in its intellectual and cultural circles. The Nazi occupation cut her childhood short at just age 13, robbing her of her birth mother and imprisoning her in a ghetto. Then came another occupation, by the Soviets, which took away her “second mother,” who had saved her from the Nazis and raised her like one of her own. Yet having survived these horrors of two of the 20th-century’s most brutal totalitarian regimes, Irena came out on the other side, believing in a life free of hatred.
Set in Vilnius, once dubbed the Jerusalem of the North, the film crafts a nuanced portrait of Irena as a testimony to her humanity and courage to live and forgive. Following Irena’s passing later in 2020, Giedrė Žickytė found new ways to tell her story, drawing on unseen testimonies and rare archives such as clandestine photos captured inside a ghetto. Woven into the narrative is music by her lifelong friend, Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, who dedicated his acclaimed piano piece Für Alina to Irena as a gesture of solace, echoing Irena’s own experience of motherhood and the longing she felt for her daughter Alina during the years they were apart.
In today’s fracturing world, Irena’s wisdom may be the guiding light we need.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Giedrė Žickytė is a European Film Academy (EFA) nominated film director and producer, and the recipient of the Lithuanian National Prize for Culture and Arts. Based in Vilnius, Lithuania, she founded the documentary film production company MOONMAKERS. She has directed and produced award-winning documentaries, including The Jump (NYBFF 2021), Lithuania’s entry for Best International Feature Film at the 94th Academy Awards. She also produced Iryna Tsilyk’s Sundance-winning The Earth is Blue as an Orange. Giedrė is an alumna of the Berlinale Talent Campus, CPH LAB, EURODOC, dok.incubator, and Producers on the Move at the Cannes Film Festival in 2024.