Runner
Bėgikė
lithuania
Directed by: Andrius Blaževičius
Marija is devoted to her troubled boyfriend Vytas, a brilliant PhD candidate who has previously been hospitalized for bipolar disorder. Early one morning, Vytas experiences a psychotic episode and suddenly goes missing. In this pulse-pounding thriller, Marija will spend the next 24 hours hurtling back and forth across Vilnius, Lithuania’s capital. Desperate to find him before he hurts himself or someone else, Marija must also deal with her own precarious medical condition and repeated calls from her mother ordering her to see a doctor. “An 87-minute-long anxiety attack masquerading as a movie—but in a good way—Lithuanian filmmaker Andrius Blaževičius’s sophomore feature is a kinetic portrayal of an extraordinary young woman paradoxically trapped at a psychological impasse … For all its adrenalized, blood-rush rhythms, Runner [is] remarkably humane” (Jessica Kiang, Variety). Winner of the Best Baltic Film Award at the Black Nights Film Festival in Tallinn and Best Film at the Riga International Film Festival.
“Blaževičius has created an immensely dynamic drama, set over the course of 24 hours, in which an [active] camera and an unsettling soundtrack significantly add to the main protagonist’s emotional state.”
Lenka Tyrpáková, Karlovy Vary IFF
Language:
In Lithuanian with English subtitles
Genre:
drama
Runtime:
87 min
YEAR:
2021
[Horák] matches each of the film’s periods to a different style: the 1960s to the Czech New Wave, the 1970s to normalization films, and the 1980s to documentary-like grainy footage. The stylisation enables a fine adjustment of dramatic effects”
(Martin Kudláč, Cineuropa).
Awards:
- Bulgarian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 91st Academy Awards 2018
- Golden Rose Festival of Bulgarian film: Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Critics Gild Award and Audience Award