Seniausias kinas Lietuvoje

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Fotografija; Kinas; Lietuvos istorija; Lietuvos vaizdo ir garso archyvas; Rinkiniai; Vilnius; Cinema; Collection; History of Lithuania; Lithuanian Archives of Image and Sound; Photography; Vilnius.

ENPopulation of Vilnius first saw the “moving pictures”, as the emerging cinema was then called, on 28 July 1896. The showing of the already globally famous films by the Lumieres brothers The Arrival of the Train, The Feeding ofa Baby, The Drenched Sprinkler, Demolishing the Wall, etc. was started in Vilnius on 3 July 1897. Copies of these films can still be seen at the Lithuanian Archives of Image and Sound (LVGA). The cameramen sent by the Pathe brothers first recorded the images of Vilnius on film in the summer of 1908. Self-made films appeared in Vilnius on 6 October 1909 (one of them was the Horse Race in Vilnius). Vladislovas Starevičius, who grew up in Kaunas and is known in the history of the cinema as a pioneer in making drawn animation films, could be mentioned among the then famous French cameramen. Not a single Lithuanian film made before World War I has survived. Antanas Račiūnas, an American of Lithuanian origin, should be considered one of the first authors of Lithuanian film. The LVGA has his following films: The Seimas of American Lithuanians (1919) and The Lithuanian State Delegation to Chicago (1920). The Archives also hold films by other pioneers of Lithuanian cinema, such as Jonas Kazimieras Milius, the brothers Kazys and Mečys Motuzą and Kazys Lukšys. The LVGA has 27,165 items of films, yet only 62 of them are old films. One of the key functions of the Archive is not only to preserve these treasures for future generations but also to ensure that these documents should be accessible to the public. [From the publication]