Gabrielė's Notebook

Last semester at Emerson College, I made a short documentary Broken Soil. I co-directed and co-produced this film with filmmaker Tommy Harkey. The film focuses on the Boston’s Ukrainian community and how it has been affected by the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Three Ukrainians: priest Roman Tarnavsky, Crimea native Oleksiy Morozli, and student Daria Mozhejko, share what it means to be far away from home when their country is going through a major crisis. Broken Soil features music by composer Gioacchino Marincola.

Broken Soil was selected to Salem Film Fest – Mass Reality Check student competition where it screened together with other captivating short docs! It also screened at the Emerson’s documentary festival It’s All True in Boston. It was nominated for Best Documentary at the 34th Evvy Awards, the largest student award show in the U.S.

After the Mass Reality Check screening and Q&A at Salem Film Festival © Mary Shea Photography

I decided to share my final assignment for Film I class at Emerson College. Here it is.

It is an experimental documentary based on the poem by Anton Kharitonov (originally in Russian, interpretations made in translation). My goal was to capture diversity in real life situations and interpret the poem visually by creating associations rather than illustrating.

Shot and edited by: Gabrielė Urbonaitė
Instructor: Kathy Rugh
Narrator: Juliet Lamond
Thanks to: Daniel Dluhy, Eglė Petraitytė, Nomeda Urbonienė
Shot on Bolex 16 mm B&W Tri-X Reversal Film on locations of Boston, MA and New York City
Edited on Steenbeck

Yesterday, February 12th 2013, I went to the advance screening of “Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?: An Animated Conversation with Noam Chomsky“, made by the amazing Michel Gondry.

Three years ago, I was a production assistant on one of the Gondry’s interviews with Prof. Chomsky and I was really happy to finally see the visually enchanting result, allowing us to experience beautiful minds of these men.

From January 2012, I had been working as an assistant editor on the newest Eyal Sivan‘s documentary project Montage Interdit, which focuses on the Jewish/Palestinian question in Jean-Luc Godard’s films. The project was presented at the Berlin Documentary Forum on June 3rd, 2012. Eyal Sivan commented Montage Interdit with film scholar Robert Stam and theoretician Ella Shohat.

In Spring 2010, I was involved into Cambridge Community Television (CCTV) production program. During few months, I produced few short films together with my peers. “About Feminism” is a documentary reportage on feminist issues in Cambridge. It consists of interviews with women of Cambridge and archival material.

About Feminism on CCTV Website

’16 mm’ is a documentary I made in Spring 2010 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It’s a story told by Mary Sherman, a painter, whose father was an engineer and amateur filmmaker. After he died, Mary didn’t know what to do with his 16 mm cameras, and she decided to give them to me. Her noble gesture inspired me to make a film about the past of those cameras as well as about Mary’s relation with her father.

16mm on Vimeo

In Spring 2010, I assisted on Michel Gondry’s interview with Prof. Noam Chomsky at MIT, Cambridge, Mass., which was shot Bolex and video cameras and illustrated by hand-drawn animation.

Untitled Noam Chomsky Documentary on IMDB

Also in Spring 2010, I was sound operator in Nic Guevara’s film Blind Luck that was shot in Cambridge, Mass. Here’s the Blind Luck Teaser

Jaunieji Kino Kurejai (The Young Filmmakers) was a film camp that took place in Lithuanian seaside, in August 2010. Its aim was to unite the ideas of disabled youth and the ones of film students in order to make few short films. I was the director of the experimental group and our work’s result was a story of a human-box and his attempts to enter into relations with the surroundings. This social experiment is based on the books of Kobo Abe. That’s where the title (in Lithuanian) comes from: Socialinis Eksperimentas Kobo Abes Motyvais (S.E.K.A.M.)
It’s available here: S.E.K.A.M. on Youtube

Watch the making of here (in Lithuanian): Making Of on Vimeo

Dadzis, Babile, and Me (Dadzis, Babile ir as) is an experimental documentary produced in Spring 2009, “Skalvija” Film Academy. It is a story of me going to my grandparents’ house for an advise on my future career. Dadzis (that’s the nickname of my grandfather) is happy because he enjoys his job from the bottom of his heart. Babile, my grandmother, is not as lucky because her dreams were not realized…

Buttons and Pigeons (Sagos ir Balandziai) 2009, is a short documentary about fears. It’s an authentic story about different fears, creation and frustration coming out of it. The first line is a story about a mother who’s afraid of buttons and her daughter who’s afraid of pigeons. fears. The second is the director’s line, talking about the process of filmmaking and the fear of failure. It’s a sincere piece, revealing the world-view of the new generation of artists.

Buttons and Pigeons were screened in the Youth Film Festival “Youth Vision” in Boston, Massachusetts, 2010 and in Vilnius Documentary Film Festival, 2010.