The main purpose of our cinema is to foster film culture, to promote the art of film, to develop film education for children and young people, and to promote community social integrity. Thus one of the most important tasks is to expand the circle of intellectual film fans and to educate the young audience. This is a big challenge for us, because our theatre is located in a small city with less than 100,000 inhabitants. There is no university in the city and the intellectual viewer is about 20% of all inhabitants.
We prefer to screen films with high artistic value and international recognition, provocative films with an interesting edge and dealing with current problems of society thus able to arouse debate. Only such films resonate in our small community and they are screened under a special heading Atmerk akis–kitoks kinas/Open Your Eyes–A Different Cinema.
But there are no such films in Lithuania, that’s why we started to buy films by ourselves. We are screening a lot of European films, but we also pay attention to the Lithuanian films because we know that it is easier to spread the love of cinema with the national cinema, too.
Cinema Center Garsas, in cooperation with embassies, foreign cultural centers and film festivals, is trying to use all the possibilities so that the audience of Panevezys city can see a variety of films. Almost all the programmes screened in Lithuania are coming to our Cinema Center. Many of them are traditional events such as the French Film Festival Winter Screens, the Women’s Film Festival Shersheliafam, the International Short Film Festival Vilnius Film Shorts, the International Animation Film Festival Tindirindis, the International Kaunas Film Festival, the Festival of Human Rights Ad Hoc: Inconvenient Films and others. To each new cinema programme, even if it is a small or big event, the audience is paying attention and it is a wonderful opportunity to spread the limits of understanding the art of cinema.
Being a member of the Europa Cinemas network is a big role for our cinema center. First of all, thanks to the financial support, we started to buy and distribute films by ourselves thus trying to compensate for the lack of arthouse films in Lithuania.
Thirty years ago Panevezys was famous for the auteurs of the present Lithuanian Cinema. During the decline of the cinema networks in 1988 – 1993 the activity of cinema developers stalled. Since 2005 we have organized each year the workshop Kino kalbos gramatika and the non-professional film festival Aš + miestas= kinas, which is a part of the city’s birthday event. The festival has quickly grown beyond the city limits, and even today it is attended by movie buffs from neighboring countries. We are proud that some cinema professional were schooled by us.
Cinema Center Garsas has run a special program called Cinema under the Sky each year since 2007 from May till August. In partnership with the City event Susitikime penktadienį/Let‘s meet on Friday we screen in the central square of the City each Friday at 9.30pm the best Lithuanian films nominated at Sidabrinė gervė (the Lithuanian national awards), and we organize meetings with the filmmakers.
In the adult Cinema club Veidrodžio ložė/Mirror lodge we show provocative thematic films once a month. After the screening critics, psychologists, and cultural personalities discuss the film with the audience.
We are open to the viewers every day 365 days a year from 8 to 23.30, and we are ready to help them fulfil all their wishes regarding the cinema, from personal events with cinema surprises to individual film reviews.