Before Flying Back to the Earth

Infobox Film
name = Before Flying Back to the Earth


caption =
director = Arūnas Matelis
producer =
writer =
starring =
music =
cinematography =
editing =
distributor =
released = 2005
runtime = 52 minutes
country = Lithuania
Germany
language = Lithuanian
budget =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
amg_id = 1:352595
imdb_id = 0892425

"Before Flying Back to the Earth" (originally released in Lithuania as "Prieš parskrendant į žemę" in 2005) is the first feature-length documentary film by the Lithuanian film director Arūnas Matelis. In a lyrical, yet unsentimental fashion, it shows the lives of children hospitalized with leukemia in Vilnius Pediatric Hospital - the same place where Matelis' daughter had battled and recovered from this disease some time before the start of production. The film is described as "a poetic, unsentimental Lithuanian documentary about the resilience of (the) human spirit". Its laconic style and its formal simplicity have been likened to haiku by some critics. [ [http://www.beforeflyingbacktoearth.com/Default.aspx?tabid=621 Portail d'informations Ce site est en vente! ] ] "Before Flying Back to the Earth" is the most highly acclaimed recent Lithuanian film and is considered one of the best documentary films of 2005 in the world; it has been shown in numerous festivals. [ [http://www.nominum.lt/index.asp?DL=E&TopicID=84 Nominum ] ] The film is in the Lithuanian language.

Awards

Arūnas Matelis was awarded the Best Documentary during the Directors Guild of America Awards 2006 night on February 3 in Los Angeles for "Before Flying Back to the Earth". [http://www.cbc.ca/arts/film/story/2007/02/04/directors-guild.html Directors Guild of America awards for 2006] It has become only the second film from Eastern Europe, since Roman Polanski's "The Pianist" in 2003, to win an award in the ADG; it is also the only film from the region of Central and Eastern Europe to have been nominated for Best Documentary. [ [http://www.nominum.lt/index.asp?DL=E&TopicID=15&ArticleID=361 Nominum ] ] The film has won many other awards and nominations, including the following:

* Best Lithuanian Film 2005 by Lithuanian Filmmakers Union
* Silver Wolf in International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), 2005
* Golden Dove in International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film, 2005
* Main Prize in Festival Documenta Madrid, 2005
* "Spirit Award for Documentary" in Brooklyn International Film Festival, 2006
* Grand Prix in Pärnu International Film Festival, 2006
* Special Jury Mention in Silverdocs Festival, 2006
* "Veliki pečat" international competition award in ZagrebDox Film Festival, 2006

The film was nominated for the European Film Academy Best Documentary Award of 2005 and was submitted for the 79th Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 2006.

The film ranked 5th in the IMDb's [http://www.imdb.com/Sections/Genres/Documentary/ list of top documentaries] as of June 2007.

References

External links

*imdb title|id=0892425|title=Prieš parskrendant į žemę
*Ulla Jacobsen. [http://www.nominum.lt/index.asp?DL=E&TopicID=37&ArticleID=259 Review of film “Before Flying Back to the Earth” by Ulla Jacobsen]