The poetic documentary Alone follows a little girl on her journey to the women‘s prison where her mother is imprisoned. The absence of words maintains the focus of a viewer on the facial expression and gestures of the main character. The film director also tries to reveal her relation to the surrounding world and to the film crew by a precise framing and a soundtrack. The documentary received the Audience award at Nyon International Film Festival Visions du Reel and Special Prize at the International Independent Film Festival L’Alternativa.

Before the screening the film educator Ginte Zulyte (Meno Avilys) briefly introduced the generation of filmmakers Audrius Stonys belongs to and encouraged students to pay attention to certain elements of the film language (framing, camera angles and distance of a camera to the main character). Then, the film director introduced Alone in a few words. The film screening was followed by the Q&A session with Audrius Stonys. The students from Žemyna gymnasium and Mintis gymnasium inquired him about the creative process of the film, his personal preferences and ethical dilemmas of a documentary filmmaker.

The most memorable quotes from the students’ conversation with Audrius Stonys:

Student 1: “In your films silence is a kind of a style. It even reminds of your personality. People and their problems are rarely depicted in such a style.”

Student 2: “What is that you don‘t like in your films?”

Stonys: “One changes a lot, films as well. Now I would have made it differently. Film Alone is made 15 years ago. Then, I saw the world differently. My new films are already different. For example, in the film Ramin people dance, drink, sing, fight, travel by trains…”

Student 1: “But even in this film about Georgians the heroes speak but their serious faces and eyes are similar to what we have seen now, even camera angles are similar”.

Stonys: “Of course… You cannot escape what you like…”

The session was facilitated by the film educator.