BURIAL
In-Person Screening: Saturday, November 5, 2:00 pm
Director Emilija Škarnulytė in conversation with MoMA curator Sophie Cavoulacos will present a Q&A following the screening of the film.
Virtual Screening: November 6-13
BURIAL (Kapinynas)
Emilija Škarnulytė, Lithuania/Norway, 2022
60 minutes, In Lithuanian and English with English subtitles
A python slithers and curls over the abandoned control room of “Chernobyl’s Big Sister” — the decommissioned Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant in Lithuania — interpreting the plant's radioactive core as an unleashed monster, one that will slither through time for millions of years. From Etruscan ruins and sunken cities to the most modern of underground repositories, artist and director Emilija Škarnulytė examines different ways in which humanity has attempted to bury the immortal. Burial is a gentle meditation on nuclear waste that examines burial traditions, and material and ritual heredity as it traces fresh and old scars that have been left on our geographical and cultural landscapes.
''Škarnulytė has her own personal angle on the nuclear dilemma and displays it in a powerfully visceral way in the closing sequences, this time opting for imagination over technical perfection.'' - Vladan Petkovic / CINEUROPA
Festival History
2022 Camden International Film Festival
2022 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival
2022 Visions du Réel International Film Festival Nyon
Tags: Lithuania, Documentary, Science, Experimental
Director bio:
Emilija Škarnulytė is an artist and filmmaker. Working between documentary and the imaginary, Škarnulytė makes films and immersive installations exploring deep time and invisible structures, from the cosmic and geologic to the ecological and political. She is the winner of the 2019 Future Generation Art Prize and represented Lithuania at the XXII Triennale di Milano. Recent solo exhibitions include Tate Modern (2021), Kunsthaus Pasquart (2021), and the National Gallery in Vilnius (2021). Her films are in the IFA, Kadist Foundation and Centre Pompidou collections and have been screened at the Serpentine Gallery, MoMA in New York, and numerous film festivals. She is a founder and co-director of Polar Film Lab, and a member of artist duo New Mineral Collective.