PRAGUE, July 6, 2025
Vytautas Katkus explores solitude and emotion in his debut feature
‘The Visitor’ premieres July 7 at Karlovy Vary.
- Vytautas Katkus’s directorial debut, The Visitor, premieres at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) on July 7.
- The film explores themes of solitude and nostalgia through the eyes of Danielius, a father returning to Lithuania.
- Katkus emphasizes creating open, emotional narratives that allow viewers to draw their own interpretations.
- He also served as director of photography and co-wrote the screenplay with Marija Kavtaradze.
Lithuanian filmmaker Vytautas Katkus’s debut feature, The Visitor, explores themes of loneliness and reconnection, premiering at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
A coup for Karlovy Vary
The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) recently announced that The Visitor would world premiere as part of the Crystal Globe Competition of its 59th edition. Industry insiders consider this a major achievement for the Czech festival.
The KVIFF website calls the film a “meditation on the human condition,” adding, “Time seems to have stopped completely in a world which lights up the fragility of the human soul and images of a home that is no longer ours.”
The plot
The film stars Darius Šilėnas, Vismantė Ruzgaitė, and Arvydas Dapšys. The Visitor premieres in KVIFF’s Crystal Globe Competition on Monday, July 7.
The movie follows Danielius, a father in his mid-30s, who “leaves his family in Norway and travels to his native Lithuania to sell his parents’ flat,” according to a plot description. “He tries to reconnect with old friends, but the strong bond he once had with them is now broken. Instead of rushing back to his young family to escape the deafening loneliness, he decides to stay, allowing himself to be guided by his solitude.”
Katkus’s path to ‘The Visitor’
Born in 1991, Katkus’s journey to feature filmmaking includes several acclaimed short films. His 2019 short, Collective Gardens, screened in the Cannes Critics’ Week program. Places premiered in the 2020 Venice Film Festival’s Horizons program, and Cherries was selected for the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.
He was also the director of photography for Saulė Bliuvaitė’s Toxic, which won the Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival last year.
Adding to the impressive credentials, Lithuanian director Laurynas Bareiša, whose feature, Drowning Dry, was Lithuania’s 2025 Oscar submission, served as the editor for The Visitor. Totem Films is handling sales.
The director’s perspective
Katkus co-wrote the screenplay with Marija Kavtaradze and served as the director of photography. What inspired Vytautas Katkus to create such a personal and evocative film?
“There are a lot of small details, and The Visitor is the combination of these small details,” Katkus said. “There are personal experiences, a lot of experiences from making short movies – things I was thinking about while making the short movies, and that I wanted to explore more.”
Katkus and Kavtaradze initially planned three stories on the same theme but decided to focus on one narrative. “We looked for the possibility to create one story in one universe, and our focus was to talk about loneliness or maybe solitude in a way that is not negative,” Katkus explained.
“We wanted to show that you sometimes need to have it. And you have to understand that right now you need to have and enjoy it, and how to enjoy it. We tried to remember our personal stories and our friends’ stories, so it became a kind of mosaic.”
An emotional narrative
Katkus aims to create an atmosphere where viewers can interpret the film in their own way. “I really want to give the viewer the possibility to explore layers and think about their own feelings,” he said. “I know what I want to say, but I don’t want it to be quite straightforward, but more open. If 100 people watch one movie, it is a very different movie for each of them.”
Nostalgia is a significant theme in The Visitor. “There are a lot of nostalgic moments, but I didn’t want to make a very nostalgic movie,” Katkus noted. He likens his approach to Seinfeld, calling it “a narrative by emotion…more like a kaleidoscope.”
Unusual angles
Katkus often employs unusual camera angles and framing. “As a cinematographer, I really like to prepare as much as possible,” he explained. “But at the same time, I really like to change things up a bit or be open to something that may happen in front of the camera. I also really want to give the actors as much freedom as possible.”
He elaborated, “I really don’t like to light the scene and put down marks and tell them, ‘You have to stand on this mark and look to this side’… So I really want to give them freedom, and I then try to catch moments with the camera and adjust to the actors, not vice versa.”
Busy times at Karlovy Vary
In addition to The Visitor, Katkus also served as the director of photography on Gabrielė Urbonaitė’s Renovation, screening in the Proxima Competition at KVIFF.
For those wondering about Katkus’s future plans, he said, “I have some ideas…I have something that I’m trying to write right now. I’m trying to find the right approach for the idea. And Marija [Kavtaradze] is involved.”
