page_title: Lithuania
section_title: Cinema
hierarchical_section_title: Lithuania / Culture / Cinema
caption_attribution_description: English: Cinema Romuva, Kaunas, Lithuania Русский: Кинотеатр Ромува, г. Каунас, Литва
context_page_description: Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania is one of the Baltic states in Europe. Situated on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, to the southeast of Sweden and Denmark, Lithuania is bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, Poland to the south, and Kaliningrad Oblast to the southwest. Lithuania has an estimated population of 2.8 million people as of 2019. The capital and largest city is Vilnius and other major cities are Kaunas and Klaipėda. Lithuanians are Balts. The official language, Lithuanian, is one of only two living languages in the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family, the other being Latvian.
  For centuries, the southeastern shores of the Baltic Sea were inhabited by various Baltic tribes. In the 1230s, the Lithuanian lands were united by Mindaugas and the Kingdom of Lithuania was created on 6 July 1253. During the 14th century, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was the largest country in Europe; present-day Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, and parts of Poland and Russia were the territories of the Grand Duchy.
context_section_description: On 28 July 1896, Thomas Edison live photography session was held in the Concerts Hall of the Botanical Garden of Vilnius University. After a year, similar American movies were available with the addition of special phonograph records that also provided sound. In 1909, Lithuanian cinema pioneers Antanas Račiūnas and Ladislas Starevich released their first movies. Soon the Račiūnas' recordings of Lithuania's views became very popular among the Lithuanian Americans abroad. In 1925, Pranas Valuskis filmed movie Naktis Lietuvoje (Night in Lithuania) about Lithuanian book smugglers that left the first bright Lithuanian footprint in Hollywood. The most significant and mature Lithuanian American movie of the time Aukso žąsis (Golden goose) was created in 1965 by Birutė Pūkelevičiūtė that featured motifs from the Brothers Grimm fairy tales. In 1940, Romuva Cinema was opened in Kaunas and currently is the oldest still operational cinema in Lithuania. After the occupation of the state, movies mostly were used for the Soviet propaganda purposes, nevertheless Almantas Grikevičius, Gytis Lukšas, Henrikas Šablevičius, Arūnas Žebriūnas, Raimondas Vabalas were able to overcome the obstacles and create valuable films. After the restoration of the independence, Šarūnas Bartas, Audrius Stonys, Arūnas Matelis, Audrius Juzėnas, Algimantas Puipa, Janina Lapinskaitė, Dijana and her husband Kornelijus Matuzevičius received success in international movie festivals.
  In 2018, 4 265 414 cinema tickets were sold in Lithuania with the average price of 5,26 euros.
caption: Romuva Cinema, the oldest still operational cinema in Lithuania
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