Vytautas Žalakevičius

Writing

Vytautas Žalakevičius

Born — Died

1930-04-14 — 1996-11-12

Place of birth

Kaunas, Lithuanian Republic

Known for

Writing

Credits

35 titles

Known for

Nobody Wanted to Die poster
5.5

The film is set in Lithuania after the Second World War. It shows dramatic events in a small Lithuanian farming community, where people are split between the Soviets and the "brothers in the woods", who are fighting to defend their land from the Soviets after the end of the Second World War.

Nobody Wanted to Die

1966

Feelings poster
6.2

When a widowed fisherman moves in with his brother and sister-in-law to escape the collapsing Nazi forces, he finds himself caught up, like Lithuania itself, in perilous questions of collaboration and occupation, resistance and escape.

Feelings

1968

The Devil's Seed poster
10.0

In the Lithuanian village of Lietuvos, a farmer brings his sheltered nephew, Joni, to the rich Bani. By biting the prospective host's hand, the teenager gains the nickname of "the devil's seed."

The Devil's Seed

1979

The Centaurs poster
4.5

A political conspiracy is brewing in an unnamed Latin American country. Everything is in play: blackmail, bribery, political assassinations, newspaper slander. The operation, code-named "Centaur", is conceived in Washington.

The Centaurs

1979

Drowned poster
NR

A minor official, Jonas Shatas, saved an apothecary who had fallen into the river. The whole city found out about it. Jonas felt like a hero. It seemed already close to the realization of a dream - marriage to the daughter of the boss. However, Jonas plan was not destined to come true. Having taken the chief, who was floundering merrily in the water, for a drowning man, Jonas decided to stun him before starting to rescue him.

Drowned

1956

Fact poster
5.7

Facts is a dramatization of a massacre in a Lithuanian village during World War II when Nazis rounded up over 100 men, women, and children accused of partisan activity and then torched the houses in which they were held. Using Russian interrogations of a few survivors, the testimony of villagers, and some of the Germans responsible for the killing, the film gradually reconstructs the event and its context.

Fact

1981

Film credits

Behind the camera

Nobody Wanted to Die poster
5.5

The film is set in Lithuania after the Second World War. It shows dramatic events in a small Lithuanian farming community, where people are split between the Soviets and the "brothers in the woods", who are fighting to defend their land from the Soviets after the end of the Second World War.

Nobody Wanted to Die

1966

Nobody Wanted to Die poster
5.5

The film is set in Lithuania after the Second World War. It shows dramatic events in a small Lithuanian farming community, where people are split between the Soviets and the "brothers in the woods", who are fighting to defend their land from the Soviets after the end of the Second World War.

Nobody Wanted to Die

1966

Feelings poster
6.2

When a widowed fisherman moves in with his brother and sister-in-law to escape the collapsing Nazi forces, he finds himself caught up, like Lithuania itself, in perilous questions of collaboration and occupation, resistance and escape.

Feelings

1968

The Devil's Seed poster
10.0

In the Lithuanian village of Lietuvos, a farmer brings his sheltered nephew, Joni, to the rich Bani. By biting the prospective host's hand, the teenager gains the nickname of "the devil's seed."

The Devil's Seed

1979

The Centaurs poster
4.5

A political conspiracy is brewing in an unnamed Latin American country. Everything is in play: blackmail, bribery, political assassinations, newspaper slander. The operation, code-named "Centaur", is conceived in Washington.

The Centaurs

1979

The Centaurs poster
4.5

A political conspiracy is brewing in an unnamed Latin American country. Everything is in play: blackmail, bribery, political assassinations, newspaper slander. The operation, code-named "Centaur", is conceived in Washington.

The Centaurs

1979

Drowned poster
NR

A minor official, Jonas Shatas, saved an apothecary who had fallen into the river. The whole city found out about it. Jonas felt like a hero. It seemed already close to the realization of a dream - marriage to the daughter of the boss. However, Jonas plan was not destined to come true. Having taken the chief, who was floundering merrily in the water, for a drowning man, Jonas decided to stun him before starting to rescue him.

Drowned

1956

Fact poster
5.7

Facts is a dramatization of a massacre in a Lithuanian village during World War II when Nazis rounded up over 100 men, women, and children accused of partisan activity and then torched the houses in which they were held. Using Russian interrogations of a few survivors, the testimony of villagers, and some of the Germans responsible for the killing, the film gradually reconstructs the event and its context.

Fact

1981

Living Heroes poster
4.9

Four different stories about young kids' destinies in different time periods in Lithuania.

Living Heroes

1960

Living Heroes poster
4.9

Four different stories about young kids' destinies in different time periods in Lithuania.

Living Heroes

1960

Weekend in Hell poster
5.1

Two POWs - Russian and Lithuanian - are trying to escape a German Camp during WWII.

Weekend in Hell

1987

Weekend in Hell poster
5.1

Two POWs - Russian and Lithuanian - are trying to escape a German Camp during WWII.

Weekend in Hell

1987

Saduto Tuto poster
7.7

Story about artist caught up in summer love triangle.

Saduto Tuto

1974

Adam Wants to Be a Man poster
5.9

In a pre-WWII Lithuanian town, occupied with unemployed workers and crooks of various kinds, lives Adam, a naive young man with no job and a lot of dreams. His closest friend is the Captain, an old sea wolf with many tales to tell about Singapore, Hawaii and other equally exotic and sunny places. Inspired by his stories, Adam manages to get a job in an emigration bureau and starts saving for his ticket to leave abroad.

Adam Wants to Be a Man

1960

Adam Wants to Be a Man poster
5.9

In a pre-WWII Lithuanian town, occupied with unemployed workers and crooks of various kinds, lives Adam, a naive young man with no job and a lot of dreams. His closest friend is the Captain, an old sea wolf with many tales to tell about Singapore, Hawaii and other equally exotic and sunny places. Inspired by his stories, Adam manages to get a job in an emigration bureau and starts saving for his ticket to leave abroad.

Adam Wants to Be a Man

1960

All Truth About Columbus poster
NR

The film is about the Colombian revolution, about the revolutionaries Pablo and Pedro, the bearers of freedom and the victims of this freedom, about the philosophy of the struggle for freedom.

All Truth About Columbus

1970

All Truth About Columbus poster
NR

The film is about the Colombian revolution, about the revolutionaries Pablo and Pedro, the bearers of freedom and the victims of this freedom, about the philosophy of the struggle for freedom.

All Truth About Columbus

1970

Story of an Unknown Man poster
4.3

Based on a short story by Anton Chekhov, this drama centers around a desire for revenge and the tragedy of a star-crossed love. After a general ruins some men under him in punishment for a rebellion, a friend of the broken men vows revenge. The friend, a naval officer, takes a job as a valet in the general's son's house. While he plots his revenge, the son has an affair with a woman whom the valet begins to love. She is discarded after becoming pregnant, and the valet has his own troubles; he has contracted tuberculosis. Sick and unable to follow through on his plans for vengeance, he leaves for France with the pregnant woman hoping to declare his love and seek a cure for his illness.

Story of an Unknown Man

1980

Story of an Unknown Man poster
4.3

Based on a short story by Anton Chekhov, this drama centers around a desire for revenge and the tragedy of a star-crossed love. After a general ruins some men under him in punishment for a rebellion, a friend of the broken men vows revenge. The friend, a naval officer, takes a job as a valet in the general's son's house. While he plots his revenge, the son has an affair with a woman whom the valet begins to love. She is discarded after becoming pregnant, and the valet has his own troubles; he has contracted tuberculosis. Sick and unable to follow through on his plans for vengeance, he leaves for France with the pregnant woman hoping to declare his love and seek a cure for his illness.

Story of an Unknown Man

1980

Tale of the Moon Outstanding poster
9.0

The legendary commander of the Civil War, the winner of Wrangel arrives in the capital at the call of Stalin. In the capital, he is perplexed to learn that the Politburo at a special meeting decided to force him to operate on a long-standing ulcer. The attending physician is convinced that the operation is not needed, but, obeying party discipline, the old Bolshevik lies on the operating table.

Tale of the Moon Outstanding

1990

The Chronicle of One Day poster
5.8

An academic heads to Leningrad to attend the funeral of an old friend.

The Chronicle of One Day

1963

The Chronicle of One Day poster
5.8

An academic heads to Leningrad to attend the funeral of an old friend.

The Chronicle of One Day

1963

The Monarch Butterfly poster
NR

A young biophysicist, dreaming of spiritual and physical immortality, makes an experiment on himself: by radioactive irradiation he violates the genetic code, as a result of which he passes into another biological substance and becomes immeasurably more perfect than his fellows on Earth.

The Monarch Butterfly

1980

That Sweet Word: Liberty! poster
5.2

In an unnamed Latin American country after a coup d'état, a military junta comes to power. The army deployed to the streets, the civilian population is exposed to hard terror. A wave of arrests follows, some former senators - liberals and communists - are sent to prison. Some patriots that have gone underground try to figure a plan for their release. They buy a small shop opposite the prison in the name of Francisco and Maria Vardes. From its basement they plan to build a 90-meter tunnel. Three years of enormous effort, deaths and nervous breakdowns are not spent in vain.

That Sweet Word: Liberty!

1973

That Sweet Word: Liberty! poster
5.2

In an unnamed Latin American country after a coup d'état, a military junta comes to power. The army deployed to the streets, the civilian population is exposed to hard terror. A wave of arrests follows, some former senators - liberals and communists - are sent to prison. Some patriots that have gone underground try to figure a plan for their release. They buy a small shop opposite the prison in the name of Francisco and Maria Vardes. From its basement they plan to build a 90-meter tunnel. Three years of enormous effort, deaths and nervous breakdowns are not spent in vain.

That Sweet Word: Liberty!

1973

The Beast Rising from the Sea poster
8.0

Based on a novel by Evgeny Zamyatin. In 1920s Petrograd, childless couple Trofim and his wife Sofya adopt their late neighbor’s daughter, thirteen-year-old Ganka, only for Ganka to begin a scandalous affair with her foster father. When Sofya’s despair over the incest drives her to murder Ganka with an axe and conceal the body during a flood, Trofim reports her “missing” to the police, who never recover the corpse. Sofya later becomes pregnant, confesses to the killing, and Trofim, moved by love and guilt, offers to take the blame, though the skeptical investigator doubts any crime occurred.

The Beast Rising from the Sea

1992

The Beast Rising from the Sea poster
8.0

Based on a novel by Evgeny Zamyatin. In 1920s Petrograd, childless couple Trofim and his wife Sofya adopt their late neighbor’s daughter, thirteen-year-old Ganka, only for Ganka to begin a scandalous affair with her foster father. When Sofya’s despair over the incest drives her to murder Ganka with an axe and conceal the body during a flood, Trofim reports her “missing” to the police, who never recover the corpse. Sofya later becomes pregnant, confesses to the killing, and Trofim, moved by love and guilt, offers to take the blame, though the skeptical investigator doubts any crime occurred.

The Beast Rising from the Sea

1992

His Wife's Confession poster
9.0

A film about the psychological crisis of a woman in her 40s as she tries to create the illusion of love - looking for herself in love and love in herself.

His Wife's Confession

1983

I'm Sorry poster
6.3

Pranas, now a celebrity singer, returns to his homeland from a big city. He is greeted at the airport and driven to his native village by a childhood friend Jonas, who works there as a doctor.

I'm Sorry

1982

I'm Sorry poster
6.3

Pranas, now a celebrity singer, returns to his homeland from a big city. He is greeted at the airport and driven to his native village by a childhood friend Jonas, who works there as a doctor.

I'm Sorry

1982

Ave, Vita poster
6.7

A survivor of a Nazi concentration camp returns to his life in Lithuania and attempts to reunite with his former comrades years after the war ended. He struggles to bridge the gap between his horrific memories of the Holocaust and the mundane reality of his modern surroundings. While interacting with his daughter and old friends, he searches for a way to integrate his past trauma into a peaceful present.

Ave, Vita

1969

The Accident poster
6.5

A reputable employee of a large firm has his car break down on the road. A repair team has been called in, but it won't get there soon. It is necessary to pass the time somehow. Not far from the highway there is a house, and in it there are several old men. They suggest we play a game. The traveler will be accused of murder, and the owners will play the roles of judge, lawyer and even executioner.

The Accident

1975

Elze's Life poster
5.2

At the end of the 19th century, proud but poor fisherman Jurgaitis gets imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. His beautiful daughter Elze is sent to live with rich German merchant Michael. There she falls for his son Endrik.

Elze's Life

2000

Until It's Too Late... poster
NR

Naive story about young bride who tries to decide which one of her admires: a broom or a fisherman, she should be with until it’s not too late.

Until It's Too Late...

1957