After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, in the formerly Soviet states, a vast network of cinemas was left suspended—unlike other cultural institutions—predominantly without a clear plan or reform. In this talk, I share my research on the shifts in cinema culture as seen through the history of cinema rescue efforts.
In Lithuania, as in other former Soviet states, this process was defined by cinemas transitioning from state to private ownership. By the late 1980s, cinemas formed a significant amount of public space. Each cinema in the network was an integral part of the local social fabric, with an extensive local presence. The cinema network, while in a fragile state, in 1990s and 2000s allowed for distinct cultural practices to emerge. My research asks about what cinema rescue means. Who were cinemas saved from and for what purpose? By whom and how?
I think of cinema rescues as openings for forms of social manifestations that no other formations could offer. For the analysis of cinema culture through cinema rescues, especially in post-USSR contexts, I propose a spatial analytic frame. To grasp the processes and meanings involved in the shift from Soviet-controlled to free-market cinema culture, spatial definitions are better suited than the classical cinephilia or film market focuses. I elaborate on this argument through the example of the Romuva Cinema rescue in Kaunas, Lithuania. Drawing on my film curatorial practice, I apply ethnographic and autoethnographic methods. Building on this case, I suggest that the rescue of Romuva Cinema in Lithuania opened up the possibility of defining a particular type of formation—a cinematic public space.
Ilona Jurkonytė is a film and moving image researcher and curator, Arts & Science Postdoctoral Fellow at Cinema Studies Institute in University of Toronto. She was a Vanier Scholar at Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema in Concordia University (2015) and Vilnius University Foundation Scholar (2023). Her work critically examines tensions between notions of the national and transnational in moving image production and circulation. She is a co-founder (2007), managing director (2007-2012) and artistic director (2007-2019) of the Kaunas International Film Festival (Lithuania), which was instrumental in rescuing Romuva Cinema (Lithuania). 2012–2014 she worked as film program curator at the Contemporary Art Centre Cinema (Lithuania).