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Lithuanian Hotels Roll out Red Carpet for Film Festival

Guests pose on the red carpet during the opening ceremony of Vilnius International Film Festival at the Hotel Pacai in Vilnius, Lithuania. (AFP)
Guests pose on the red carpet during the opening ceremony of Vilnius International Film Festival at the Hotel Pacai in Vilnius, Lithuania. (AFP)
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Lithuanian Hotels Roll out Red Carpet for Film Festival

Guests pose on the red carpet during the opening ceremony of Vilnius International Film Festival at the Hotel Pacai in Vilnius, Lithuania. (AFP)
Guests pose on the red carpet during the opening ceremony of Vilnius International Film Festival at the Hotel Pacai in Vilnius, Lithuania. (AFP)

With Lithuania's cinemas still shut due to the pandemic, local movie-lovers will be able to enjoy a cherished film festival in a novel way -- from the comfort of a hotel room.

Organizers of the International Vilnius Film Festival, which began last week, are inviting residents of the capital to check into one of its hotels to watch the films beamed to their rooms.

"The pandemic took a toll on mental health and people need entertainment. It also gives some support to the hard-hit hotel industry," festival CEO Algirdas Ramaska told AFP.

"Some 200 rooms were booked in hotels for an opening night and they are almost sold out for weekends," he said, before greeting guests in dinner jackets and dresses for their tailor-made festival experience.

The hotel rooms are decorated with festival signs and there is a hand-written postcard from the organizers. Prices for the experience, which runs until April, vary from $95 to $350 per night.

Vilnius businesswoman Kristina Sermuksnyte-Alesiuniene said she would visit three different hotels in the coming weeks. "I did not miss a single Vilnius film festival in the last decade and cannot miss this one. And this year it offers once-in-a-lifetime experience," she told AFP in her room, as she settled in to watch the opening ceremony online.

Lithuanian actor Gabija Siurbyte, another festival fan, said the experience will be helpful towards returning to the habit of leaving home to watch movies when the pandemic ends.

"It felt so good to open a wardrobe for a dinner dress and put on heels again," she said at hotel PACAI, a converted 17th-century palace located in the heart of Vilnius's baroque old town.

Last year's edition of the festival had to switch to an online-only format and organizers had been hopeful that the 26th edition in 2021 could be different.

But cinemas in Lithuania have been shut since November.

The festival was opened with "People We Know Are Confused," a drama produced by Dagne Vildziunaite about life in Vilnius as a sign of much needed solidarity. "The feeling is rather strange as we would like to have a usual festival. But we decided to move ahead with the premiere in a show of solidarity to the festival and actors," she told AFP.

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Javier Bardem on Gaza: ‘We Cannot Remain Indifferent’ in Call for Hostage Release and Ceasefire

Javier Bardem appears at the 94th Academy Awards nominees luncheon in Los Angeles on March 7, 2022. (AP)
Javier Bardem appears at the 94th Academy Awards nominees luncheon in Los Angeles on March 7, 2022. (AP)
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Javier Bardem on Gaza: ‘We Cannot Remain Indifferent’ in Call for Hostage Release and Ceasefire

Javier Bardem appears at the 94th Academy Awards nominees luncheon in Los Angeles on March 7, 2022. (AP)
Javier Bardem appears at the 94th Academy Awards nominees luncheon in Los Angeles on March 7, 2022. (AP)

Javier Bardem was no longer comfortable being silent on Gaza.

The Spanish actor spoke out about the Israeli-Hamas conflict upon accepting an award at the San Sebastian Film Festival last week. In his nuanced remarks, Bardem condemned the Hamas attacks as well as the "massive punishment that the Palestinian population is enduring."

He called for immediate ceasefire, Hamas’ release of hostages and for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Hamas leaders — some of whom are now dead — who ordered the Oct. 7 attacks to be judged by the International Criminal Court.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Bardem explained why he chose to speak out.

"I believe that we can and must help bring peace. If we take a different approach, then we will get different results," Bardem told the AP, speaking prior to Iran’s attack on Israel Tuesday. "The security and prosperity of Israel and the health and future of a free Palestine will only be possible through a culture of peace, coexistence and respect."

Israel’s offensive has already killed over 40,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, displaced the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents and destroyed much of the impoverished territory. Palestinian fighters are still holding some 110 hostages captured in the Oct. 7 attack that started the war, in which they killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians. Around a third of the 110 are already dead, according to Israeli authorities.

The war has drawn sharp divisions in Hollywood over the past year, where public support of Israel or Palestine has provoked backlash and bullying, with accusations of antisemitism and Islamophobia, and cost people jobs. Even silence has had its consequences. The #blockout2024 movement pressured celebrities who hadn’t said anything — or enough — to take a stand.

"Why now?" Bardem said. "Because to continue to stall negotiations and return to the previous status quo, as they say, or as we are seeing now, embark on a race to further violations of international law would be to perpetuate the war and eventually lead us off a cliff."

Bardem stressed that while antisemitism and Islamophobia are real and serious problems in the US, Europe and beyond, that the terms are being used to divert attention away from the "legitimate right to criticize the actions of the Israeli government and of Hamas.

"We’re witnessing crimes against human rights, crimes under international law, such as, for example, the banning of food, water, medicines, electricity, using, as UNICEF says, war against children and the trauma that’s being created for generations," Bardem said. "We cannot remain indifferent to that."

The Oscar-winner, who was born in the Canary Islands, has spoken up on global issues before, signing an open letter calling for peace during a 2014 conflict between Israel and Hamas. He's also an environmental advocate, and spoke to the UN in 2019 about protecting the oceans.

"My mother educated me on the importance of treating all human beings equally, regardless of skin color, ethnicity, religion, nationality, socio and economic status, ability or sexuality," Bardem said. "Actions inform us and that alone interests me about people. That's why I have always been concerned about discrimination of any kind. That includes antisemitism and Islamophobia."

Bardem is married to Penélope Cruz, with whom he shares two children.

He said that beyond a fear that the framework of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is in danger, he has seen the effects of the conflict up close and the promise of a different approach. Two of his close friends, one Israeli, one Palestinian, both lost daughters to violence years ago and have bonded together in their shared pain and desire to help create positive change.

Those fathers, Bassam Aramin and Rami Elhanan, are members of a nonprofit organization called The Parents Circle Families Forum that emphasizes reconciliation. They wrote a letter that Bardem shared: "What happened to us is like nuclear energy. You can use it for more destruction. Or you can use it to bring light. Losing your daughter is painful in both situations. But we love our life. We want to exist. So we use this pain to support change. To build bridges, not to dig graves."

Bardem added: "That’s what it should be about: Building bridges, not digging graves. That’s why it’s urgent and important."