• Director(s):

    GABO (Malgosha)

  • Producer(s):

    ARTE FRANCE

  • Territories:

    Worldwide.

  • Production year:

    2006

  • Language(s):

    German, French

  • Rights:

    NON-THEATRICAL, TV, VOD, DVD, INTERNET

Lithuania : Birute, 48, museum guide.

This slim and energetic 48 year-old woman's life represents her country's history and future - Birute is a guide and cleaning lady in the Museum of Communism in Grutas. Every day she washes the floor among the vestiges of a former era. She dusts off the gigantic busts of Vladimir Illich and Stalin, without any great emotion. "I don't feel anything. It's as though I was cleaning any old object". On the other hand, touching the statues to check that the beast is well and truly dead is a jubilatory compensation¿. Birute points out with humour that she too, could be among the museum's exhibition pieces. For, like a third of the population, her parents were deported to Siberia for 9 years. That is where they met and that's also where she was born. For her, out of the pain of deportation, a love story was born, and that's what's so beautiful! Birute has always tried not to take life too seriously, and to keep her sense of humour, even when it comes to her daughter, a difficult teenager, like teenagers all over the world.