Vilnius is becoming an increasingly desirable destination for foreign filmmakers every year—not only when scouting filming locations, but also when seeking inspiration or consultations with Lithuanian professionals. At the invitation of the Lithuanian film production company M-Films, Ukrainian director Marysia Nikitiuk developed the screenplay for her upcoming film in Vilnius over the past few weeks. She became the fifth creator to come to Lithuania through the international Pop Up Film Residency network of screenplay residencies. Nikitiuk consulted on the project with Lithuanian screenwriter and director Marija Kavtaradze.
Four years ago, at the initiative of M-Films, Lithuania became the first Baltic country to join the international Pop Up Film Residency network of screenplay residencies. Since then, filmmakers from Brazil, Kazakhstan, Romania, France, and Ukraine have already come to Vilnius to seek inspiration.
“Our experience with Pop Up Film Residency is becoming increasingly interesting, mature, and multifaceted—we are welcoming talents who are already visible on the international film industry radar, and increasingly larger projects grow out of a few-week-long screenplay writing residencies,” says M-Films producer Marija Razgutė.
For example, the film Winner by director Zhannat Alshanova, which was recently awarded Best Baltic Co-production at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, was also developed at the screenplay stage during a residency in Vilnius. After that, Lithuanian partners joined the film’s production together with France, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, and Sweden, resulting in a successful collaboration whose world premiere took place at the prestigious Locarno Film Festival.
“We feel a strong desire among talents to come and write their screenplays specifically here—Vilnius is increasingly being identified as a film-friendly city. The city’s image as welcoming and inspiring for creators is also supported by the Vilnius City Municipality—thanks to it, this year we were able to organize as many as three screenplay writing residencies instead of the usual one per year,” the producer says.
“We are especially pleased that this year’s screenplay writing residencies were crowned by the first-ever visit of Ukrainian director Marysia Nikitiuk. We established a very important connection with one of the most interesting emerging Ukrainian talents and, I hope, significantly contributed through our consultations to increasing Nikitiuk’s chances of making this film,” says Razgutė, who hosted the director in Vilnius.
In Vilnius, Nikitiuk developed the screenplay for her third feature-length film. The world premieres of her first two feature fiction films took place at A-class festivals—the Berlin International Film Festival (2018, When the Trees Fall) and the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (2022, Lucky Girl). Nikitiuk is also known internationally as a screenwriter—she is a co-writer of Homeward, directed by Nariman Aliev, which was presented at the Cannes Film Festival in 2019.
The director’s third feature film, Noah, will take the audience to the summer of 2022, when it still seemed that Ukraine’s victory was very close and that its soldiers would push Russian forces beyond the country’s borders through counteroffensives. According to the director, the fiction film, which will begin as an explosive adventure drama, will gradually transform into a hyperrealistic nightmare. Noah is planned as the first film in a future trilogy.
Pop Up Film Residency Vilnius is partially funded by the Vilnius City Municipality and Eurimages.
About M-Films
Founded in 2008, the film production company M-Films produces fiction films that are successfully presented at major international film festivals, many of which have been awarded National Lithuanian Film Awards and Silver Cranes. The company produces films by a younger generation of Lithuanian directors—Andrius Blaževičius (Divorce During Wartime, 2026; Runner, 2021; The Saint, 2016), Karolis Kaupinis (Hunger Strike Breakfast, 2025; Nova Lituania, 2019), Vytautas Katkus (The Visitor, 2025; Cherries, 2022), and Marija Kavtaradze (Slow, 2023; Summer Survivors, 2018). M-Films is also highly active in international co-production projects.
