The musical collage The Festival of Songs is based on home videos from the last decade of the 20th century, which capture everyday moments, namely – people playing various musical instruments and singing. This was a time when the beginning of Lithuanian independence coincided with the spread of the first widely available personal video cameras. Their owners mostly filmed their immediate living surroundings and family members. Today, these home videos provide an opportunity to look back at the beginnings of our current independent society, to understand what has remained and what has disappeared, what has become a lasting characteristic of society and what is merely a sign of the times. This work, full of nostalgia, irony, and warmth, is an ode to the inevitability of passing time.
The 1990s marked the beginning of Lithuania’s independence and, at the same time, the beginning of our generation’s lives. It was a naïve time of those starting and learning to live, and accepting everything with open eyes and hearts. It was also a time when our parents gained freedom and the opportunity to capture that beginning themselves directly with their first personal video cameras. Home videos in occupied Lithuania were only available to a small privileged class. During the first decade of independence, the number of filming people increased significantly. This was not the approach of a television cameraman or a director trying to portray society, but simply the view of people recording their immediate living surroundings and everyday life. Today, when we have reached the age of our parents at that time, these recordings provide an excellent opportunity to look at the beginnings and origins of the present us, to understand what describes our character as a society and what was merely a sign of that particular time. Many things during that time were accompanied by music and song (an observation that emerged after reviewing the material). Hence, an idea arose that the most appropriate way to interpret this material was through music.
Director Karolis Kaupinis