Loss

Director Maris Martinsons was inspired by “Six Degrees of Separation” to make LOSS, a moody tale that weaves together the stories of six seemingly unrelated people's interconnected lives. One of the threads tells of Valda, a destitute young mother who gives her son to a local orphanage and takes off in search of a better life in Ireland, promising the boy she'll return. In Ireland she meets a fellow Lithuanian, a priest with dark secrets in his past. Meanwhile, back home, Valda's son is adopted by a businesswoman named Nora who has no children of her own. Nora's former husband Ben is a permanently drunk former business owner whose life fell apart when his cell phone was used to trace calls to his mistresses. The final thread is Laima who is not only Ben's ex-lover, but also the cutthroat new head of his former business. LOSS is a meditation on the fragmented nature of contemporary life in Lithuania. Popular musician Andrius Momontovas, who scored the atmospheric soundtrack for the film, also plays the priest. (In Lithuanian with subtitles and English)– B.B.