Arūnas Matelis
Film director and producer Arūnas Matelis studied at mathematics at
Arūnas Matelis is the first director from Eastern and Central Europe to receive one of the most important cinema awards - “Director’s Guild of America” award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary for “Before Flying Back to the Earth”, while the film was recognized as the world best documentary of the year. “Before Flying Back to the Earth” is one of a few documentaries that received more than 10 awards within less than one year since the first screening. Among them are the most important prizes in Europe: “Silver Wolf” at International Documentary Festival Amsterdam, “Golden Dove” at International Leipzig Festival and European Film Academy nomination for “European Oscar” even before the official premier of the film. This film not only was acknowledged by film critics and festivals, but it also inspired many charity events all over the world.
The first film by Arūnas “Ten Minutes Before the Flight of Icarus” (1990) received numerous awards and critics called it a film manifest of new generation of Lithuanian filmmakers. After 15 years the film was raised to a new life - The International Critics’ Week at
His following documentary, “Flight over Lithuania or 510 of silence” (directed together with Audrius Stonys) became a “Platinum Film” for best results in sales of DVD and VHS in Lithuania (including mainstream European and USA production).
Films by Arūnas Matelis were awarded and screened in many world wide film festivals like:
Cannes (“Directors’ fortnight” and “Critics’ Week”),
And the most important documentary festivals in Europe like
As a producer Arūnas successfully worked with the best Lithuanian film-makers, like: Henrikas Šablevicius, Audrius Stonys, Vytautas V. Lansbergis, Romas Lileikis, Oksana Buraja, Domantas Vildžiūnas and others.
Arūnas Matelis is a member of
Awards:
“Director’s Guild of ” award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary in 2007;
European
„Golden Dove“ at
“Silver Wolf” at International Documentary Festival Amsterdam/IDFA;
First Prize – main award – at Documenta
„Big Stamp Award” main award in Zagreb DOX;
Grand Prix at Parnu international documentary festival;
Main prize at Oberhausen Films Festival;
Special prizes at Brooklyn and “Silverdocs” festivals in , Bornholme in