![Nova Lituania.](https://media.guim.co.uk/980a43c6b311465ea4bba952fb1cd85a68efeaed/0_245_1793_1076/1000.jpg)
This assured feature debut from writer and director Karolis Kaupinis takes a wry look at a little-known event in late-1930s Lithuania. Anticipating the coming war, a geographer proposes the setting up of an alternative colony overseas – a backup Lithuania – to be used in the event of an invasion. This is the jumping-off point for a densely detailed, slyly comic collision between international politics and absurdity.
It’s not immediately accessible film-making, but Kaupinis uses the medium smartly: everything from the boxed-in aspect ratio to the geographer’s increasingly oppressive living arrangements nods to Lithuania’s potential plight.
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