LINA LUŽYTĖ
Lina Lužytė was born in Vilnius, Lithuania, in 1985. She graduated from the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre in 2011 with an MA in Film Directing, and has numerous writing and directing credits for both feature and documentary films. In 2009, she wrote and directed IT WOULD BE SPLENDID, YET…, a short film about a Lithuanian woman seeking a new identity after the country regained its independence. The film was selected by over 15 international festivals and has won a number of awards. In 2010, Lina shot IGRUSHKI, a documentary about the inhabitants of a provincial town in Belarus who survive only by selling soft toys to the passengers of passing trains, while constantly pursued by the militia. The film has won a number of awards. Since 2011, Lina has been part of the documentary project 199 LITTLE HEROES (Cologne, Germany), which depicts the challenging journeys to school experienced by children around the world. Lina’s first feature, TOGETHER FOREVER, in which she uses the family as the primary social unit to explore communication gridlock as a diagnosis for today’s society, premiered at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival in 2016.

Director's statement
"THE CASTLE is a coming-of-age story about pursuing your dreams rather than accepting what life throws at you. It centres on a Lithuanian teenager in Ireland who rejects the usual ‘second-class’ life of an immigrant and sets herself the goal of becoming an acclaimed musician. This is the story of thousands of Lithuanian children who have been uprooted by their parents and brought to Ireland in the hope of a better life. THE CASTLE is dramatic at its core, touching on topics from identity and the desire for recognition, to coping with dementia. However, there’s plenty of humour too – or, rather, moments of the absurd – that arise naturally from the situation of being a newly arrived immigrant: difficulties with a new language; cultural clashes; the effort to fit in, to be just like everyone else – or at least, no worse than the others. The story is set in Dublin. This is key to the narrative because to this day, Ireland is one of the main destinations for Lithuanian migrants. Since 2004 (when Lithuania joined the EU), more than two per cent of Lithuania’s overall population has moved to Ireland".