The Lawyer is a revolutionary representation of queer love in modern-day Lithuania | Film of the Week
Welcome to Film of the Week, a new series where we spotlight the best films from Eastern Europe and Central Asia available to watch online. We’ll be selecting a film each week from the thousands at hand on streaming platforms, from new releases to arthouse classics.
21 May 2021
Text:
Lucía de la Torre
On the surface, wealthy corporate lawyer Marius seems to have it all. Yet after the loss of his father, the emotional void in his life becomes inescapable. While he tries to numb his grief by flirting with friends and teasing young lovers, he comes across Ali, a Syrian sex-cam worker stuck in a refugee camp in Belgrade. The Lawyer, written and directed by Lithuanian filmmaker Romas Zabarauska, was the first Baltic production to portray male homosexual love on screen. The director himself came out as gay in 2011 at the premiere of his debut short Porno Melodrama. Since then, he has become an active advocate for LGBTQ+ rights in Lithuania, despite abuse and even an arson attack on his apartment in Vilnius in 2018. While Baltic cinema and society today may be more liberal, taboos around homosexuality still remain, which Zabarauskas confronts with masterful screenwriting skills, in a film of honest complexity and tenderness.
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