ACID FOREST (RŪGŠTUS MIŠKAS) New Auteurs

A wispy strip of land stretching between Russia and Lithuania is home to the unlikeliest of attractions. At the top of a narrow staircase in the Curonian Spit, a platform designated for tourists overlooks a dying forest of leafless trees, with branches resembling brittle fingers clawing the sky. What was once a plantation of pine trees is now home to thousands of cormorants, ancient carnivorous black birds who are ruining the area with their acid-fortified feces. A bird’s eye view captures the often humorously conflicting insights from the globe-trotting vacationers, likening the scene to nuclear fallout, or a scene from Hitchcock’s THE BIRDS. With daredevil cinematography and an immaculate, engulfing sound design, Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė’s prize-winning debut is a beguiling snapshot of the juncture between natural destruction and fertile rebirth. – Jesse Knight