Films > Literature & Poetry > Book Smugglers
An Irish director comes to Lithuania to explore how that country’s language survived after being outlawed by Tsar Alexander II in 1863. The film centers on the inspiring secret operations that smuggled books and newspapers published in Lithuanian outside of the country back in. The Irish director, who himself speaks Gaelic – another language on the verge of extinction – tries to understand how and if his people can save it. He embarks on a journey along the Lithuanian border in attempt to recreate the smugglers’ path, and to meet them and their descendants. They stress that if he and his friends give up the language, they will forever lose their national identity. In light of anti-Semitic writings in Lithuanian, one of the film’s subtexts seems to question whether nationalism is always worth preserving.
