Who I am?

  I am Vytautas V. Landsbergis. I was born in dismal times of the Soviet occupation in Vilnius to a musicologist Vytautas and a pianist and a Siberian exile Gražina. As a kid I went to a kindergarten on the Red Army Avenue. Immediately after the kindergarten, I was desperate to apply for a director’s job in Kaunas Zoo, but my parents objected claiming that I was too young. Thus, I was forced to go to A. Vienuolis secondary school in Vilnius.
  My first poems were dedicated to my physics teacher and written on the pilot graduation exam sheet – I was already more adept at poetry than at physics. The teacher evaluated my creative torment by giving me 4 out of 5.
  Several years later I graduated from Vilnius University with a degree in Lithuanian language and literature, which is now my main language of communication and writing poetry, screenplays, essays and fairy-tales.
Later I studied filmmaking in Tbilisi Theatre and Film Institute in Georgia, but the studies were interrupted by a civil war. Left without a degree I had to find other teachers, so I went to Mekas at his Anthology Film Archives in New York and later to Kieslowski and Zannussi in Poland.
  When Lithuania regained its independence and the Revival period began, I started making national archive documentaries on prominent Lithuanian persons, including the partisan Juozas Lukšas Daumantas, diplomat Stasys Lozoraitis, basketball player Arvydas Sabonis, sculptor Vilius Orvidas, filmmaker Jonas Mekas, poets Henrikas Nagys, Vytautas Bložė and Nijolė Miliauskaitė, and other outstanding Lithuanians. During the 15 years of cinematography, I produced 15 documentaries, and one children’s film Hansel and Gretel (Jonukas ir Grytutė) in 2002.
  Over 10 of my children’s books have been published in Lithuania, including Tales of the Little Brownnoser (Rudnosiuko istorijos), Tales-Non-Tales (Pasakos-nepasakos), Apple Tales (Obuolių pasakos), Angel Tales (Angelų pasakos), The Love of Dominic the Horse (Arklio Dominyko meilė), Zita the Mouse (Pelytė Zita) etc. There were three poetry books too. I also staged nine plays in a number of theatres across Lithuania – mostly written by myself.
  Recently I have been staying in the provincial town in Anykščiai. I have five children and three grandchildren. Most of the time I write children’s books, look out of the window or go to the Šventoji River with children to watch cranes catching fish – all of this makes me feel as if I were the director of an imaginary Anykščiai Zoo…