Restriced Sensation

Set in Soviet Lithuania in the 70s, Narkevičius’ latest film tells the Kafkaesque story of a young theatrical Stage Director (Laimonas Šiaučiuvėnas, played by Valentinas Krulikovskis), who was fired from his job, arrested and subjected to interrogation by a KGB agent, for being suspected of homosexuality: an ‘accusation’ for which article 122 of the Soviet penal code recommended three years of incarceration. As in his recent installations, sound is particularly important in this film, as a plastic element and in its objectual component. Restricted Sensation, which deals with the theme of homosexuality as metaphor of individual and creative freedom, is Narkevičius’ first feature-length film, and his first work based solely on a screenplay, based on the testimony of homosexuals who lived during the Soviet period. Produced in 2011 on the occasion of the show You Are Not Alone at the Fundazione Joan Miró, Barcelona, and the Museo de Arte Contemporánea in Vigo, the film was presented at many Festivals, including the Rotterdam International Film Festival and the Berlinale, 2012.