RENOVATION
In-Person Screening: Saturday, November 8, 5 PM
Actor Žygimantė Elena Jakštaitė and editor Armands Začs will present a Q&A following the screening.
Virtual Screenings: TBA
Renovation (Renovacija)
Director and Screenwriter: Gabrielė Urbonaitė, 90 min, Lithuania, Latvia, Belgium, 2025
In Lithuanian with English subtitles
North American Premiere
The feature directorial debut of Lithuanian writer-director Gabriele Urbonaite follows 29-year-old perfectionist Ilona (Žygimantė Elena Jakštaitė) as she faces mounting pressure to feel successful and settled by age 30. A work-from home journalist in Vilnius, things are getting serious with her boyfriend boyfriend Matas (Šarūnas Zenkevičius). And they've just moved into what seems like an idyllic apartment — until a massive, noisy bout of renovation work begins. In the midst of repairs to the building’s Soviet-era façade, cracks reveal themselves in Ilona’s seemingly perfect life, particularly as she hits it off with Ukrainian construction worker Oleg (Roman Lutskyi). Their connection leads to new discoveries —after spontaneously telling him she’s a poet, she actually begins to write poetry. But it also deepens her uncertainty. Does she really want to settle down and start a family?
Festival & Awards History
2025 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
2025 Nordic Film Days Lübeck
2025 London Baltic Film Festival
Director bio:
Gabrielė Urbonaitė (born in 1993, Vilnius, Lithuania) is a writer, director and editor. She directed several short films, including The Swimmer that won National Lithuanian Film Award “Silver Crane”. She participated in Berlinale Talents, Talent Camp Odense, and Reykjavik Talent Lab, and was named Mountainfilm Emerging Filmmaker in 2020. As editor, she worked on Lithuanian Film Award-winning Remember to Blink. She holds a BFA in Film from Emerson College and an MFA in Screenwriting & Directing from Columbia University.