The world premiere of “Wonderful Losers: A Different World”, the film by Arūnas Matelis, is coming

The newest film of Arūnas Matelis, “Wonderful Losers: A Different World”, which has not yet been screened in Lithuania, will be presented already in a few days at the A-list Warsaw Film Festival. The world premiere of the film, where the director himself with his film crew will be present, is scheduled for 14 October.

“Wonderful Losers: A Different World” has been invited to the documentary competition program. This time 15 films from around the world will compete in it. According to the festival programmer Magdalena Maksimiuk, documentary program of the festival is incredibly strong this year. “Talented documentary filmmakers from Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine, United Kingdom, USA, Australia, Spain, Germany, Poland, France, Belgium and Argentina have chosen our festival for the world premiere of their films. It’s a great honour and privilege for us,” – says M. Maksimiuk.

Lithuanian director A. Matelis’ film “Wonderful Losers: A Different World” will be the first full-length documentary film, with which Lithuania, as the main producer and country of production will participate in the main competition program of feature-length documentary films in an A-list festival.

This year’s Warsaw International Film Festival will feature more than 200 films from 63 countries worldwide. Representatives of all countries that participated in the production of the film have been invited to the premiere of the film by the Lithuanian director A.Matelis. “This is, so far, the largest film co-production project in Europe. At the premiere, I hope to meet my team from Lithuania, Italy, Switzerland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Latvia, Spain and Belgium. The film production took almost eight years, so you can imagine how all of us are looking forward to the premiere,” – says the film’s director A. Matelis.

“Wonderful Losers: A Different World” is the most complex and risky European documentary film project, because before Arūnas Matelis, for 40 years no film director had the right to capture the Giro d’Italia race “from the inside”. The film “Wonderful Losers: A Different World” tells the unique and never seen before story of the so-called gregarios, Sancho Panzas, water carriers, and at the same time the monks and knights of professional cycling, who have no right to personal victories, in the background of the prestigious race. According to the Italian daily “La Repubblica”, the Lithuanian director has chosen a risky bet: a feature film not about the winners, but about the hard working athletes who are left in the shadow. However, Matelis is convinced that the topic of conscious self-sacrifice is very universal and understandable not only for the fans of bicycle racing.

Premiere of the film in Lithuania will take place next year.

The film is partly financed by the Lithuanian Cinema Centre under the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania.

The film premiere and presentation at the Warsaw Film Festival is sponsored by the Lithuanian Cinema Centre in cooperation with the Lithuanian Embassy in Poland.