Curonian Spit Recognized as One of the Treasures of European Film Culture

The European Film Academy has announced the addition of eleven new places to its Treasures of European Film Culture list, recognizing locations that hold special significance for European cinema – among them, Lithuania’s Curonian Spit, a long-standing source of inspiration for filmmakers.

For the first time, countries like Lithuania, Bulgaria, Malta, and Slovenia have joined the list, which now features 60 places of symbolic importance to European film culture. Among these are Rome’s Trevi Fountain, immortalized in classics such as William Wyler’s Roman Holiday (1953) and Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita (1960), a museum on Sweden’s Baltic Sea island of Fårö dedicated to Ingmar Bergman’s legacy, and the Notting Hill bookstore in London featured in the 1999 romantic comedy of the same name.

“The Treasures of European Film Culture list includes places from film museums and legendary studios to unique architectural landmarks and breathtaking natural landscapes featured in cinema. The Curonian Spit now joins this list, valued for its deeply intertwined relationship between people and nature, which shapes a specific cultural landscape. Becoming part of this prestigious list is not only a significant international recognition but also a call to preserve and sustain this Lithuanian heritage as an enduring part of European film culture,” says Laimonas Ubavičius, head of the Lithuanian Film Centre.

Added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2000, the Curonian Spit has long attracted travelers and artists. German writer Thomas Mann, who first visited Nida in the summer of 1929, was so captivated by the area’s uniqueness and natural beauty that he soon decided to build a summer house there. Even before that, the region’s traditional aesthetic – fishing villages, forests, and sand dunes – had been depicted in paintings and photography, representing a lifestyle closely tied to nature.

In the 20th century, the Curonian Spit became a source of inspiration for notable Lithuanian filmmakers. It played a symbolic role in Feelings (1968), directed by Almantas Grikevičius and Algirdas Dausa – a film now considered one of the greatest Lithuanian films of all time. In this poignant post-war drama, the Curonian Spit becomes a metaphor for Lithuania’s geopolitical situation, with its landscapes reflecting the characters’ fates.

A different portrayal appears in A Small Confession (1971), directed by Algirdas Araminas, a film that has also earned a place in Lithuanian film history, where the Curonian Spit symbolizes a journey toward youthful freedom. Later examples include two films directed by Algimantas Puipa: the poetic drama A Woman and Her Four Men (1983) and the historical tale Elze’s Life (2000), as well as Andrius Šiuša’s only feature film, And He Bid You Farewell (1993).

The once romanticized image of the Curonian Spit has more recently made way for realistic portrayals and complex themes, particularly in documentary cinema. Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė’s 2018 ecological documentary Acid Forest tells the story of a cormorant colony through the voices of tourists. That same year, Andrius Lekavičius released Blurred Border, an interactive documentary exploring the Curonian Spit as a shared territory between two countries and presenting life on both sides of the border. Vytautas Puidokas’ 2021 documentary Before They Meet focuses on the ornithological stations of both countries, which collaborated for the first time on a bird migration research project.

At the end of 2025, Sand in Your Hair, a feature film by Mantas Verbiejus, also partially shot on the Curonian Spit, will premiere in cinemas. It tells a story of two elderly individuals who, escaping societal norms, discover freedom and love in the fragile time they have left.

In summer 2025, the Lithuanian Film Centre, together with the European Film Academy and the Neringa Municipality, will host a ceremony unveiling a special plaque marking the Curonian Spit’s status as a Treasure of European Film Culture. The initiative’s partner is the Association of Lithuanian Cinema Culture.

Cover photo by Andrius Kundrotas. Stills from the films Feelings, A Small Confession, A Woman and Her Four Men, Acid Forest, Before They Meet (Lithuanian Film Centre Archive).

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