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DANCE IN THE DESERT

By Agne MARCINKEVICIUTE, Vytautas V. LANDSBERGIS

Documentary - Completed 2009

"Dance in the Desert" - a documentary biographical film, presenting the life, creative and social activity of a unique figure in contemporary literature in Baltic States - writer Jurga Ivanauskaite.

- Year of production
- 2009
- Genres
- Documentary
- Countries
- LITHUANIA
- Languages
- ENGLISH
- Duration
- 71 mn
- Director(s)
- Agne MARCINKEVICIUTE, Vytautas V. LANDSBERGIS
- Writer(s)
- Agne MARCINKEVICIUTE
- Cast
- Birute MAR, Jurate VILUNAITE, Gediminas STORPIRSTIS
- Producer(s)
- Zivile GALLEGO (Fralita)
- Synopsis
- The main thought of he film is to convey the experience of J. Ivanauskaite's life and to eternalize those ideas, which she left us as an invitation to fearlessly seek our spiritual way.
  Jurga Ivanauskaite was born in 1961, she graduated from the Vilnius Institute of Arts. Her paintings and photographs always draw crowds when exhibited. But it was her first books that established Ivanauskaite’s reputation as an unconventional writer. They circulated widely among young people who had previously shown little interest. Ivanauskaite’s novel “Ragana ir lietus” 1993 (The Witch and the Rain) caused a national scandal and it was immediately condemned in official circles as common pornography. Though there is nothing pornographic about this book, after the scandal it became a bestseller.
  J.Ivanauskaite has introduced Tibet to Lithuania. After her visits in the Far East, she became an active supporter of the Tibet liberation movement. Until her Tibetan trilogy, no books on Tibet had been available in Lithuanian. A collection of traveler’s tales and insights into the religion, political situation and everyday reality of Tibetans living in exile in Northern India, “Istremtas Tibetas” delves into the soul of one of the world’s most spiritual societies. It has a personal foreword by the Dalai Lama, whose visit to Lithuania in 2001 Ivanauskaite helped to arrange.
  More than twenty books, written by J. Ivanauskaite, are in the most popular books list, the film “Whisper of Sin” made according J.Ivanauskaite’s books got a very big and positive attention from Lithuanian viewers. Jurga Ivanauskaite has received a national prize in 2005 in Lithuania. Her works have been translated into several languages, including English, Latvian, Polish, Russian, German, and Swedish. Since her tragic death in February 2007 from cancer at the age of 45 as when she was alive, Ivanauskaite remains Lithuania’s best-loved writer. Her creative power is all the more outstanding that, in spite of heavy illness she experienced, she continued writing, trying to pass a message of the joy of life until the last moment.