Vialet Sponsors Origins, a Documentary Series Filmed Across Five Continents
What ORIGINS Is
ORIGINS is a five-part documentary series filmed over three years across five continents. The team recorded conversations with 100 artists, scientists, entrepreneurs and cultural leaders whose families left Lithuania and the surrounding region, most of them born between 1928 and 1945.
The five standalone films are titled Search, Belonging, Endurance, Creation and Return. Each film takes one thread. Search follows the attempt to locate a community and finds the search becoming the subject. Belonging examines how heritage shapes identity. Endurance looks at where people find strength under pressure. Creation covers ingenuity and the decision to build something. Return closes the series with a journey back to a place both personal and distant.
Two further outputs run alongside the series. The first is a set of 100 short films, published since 2024, each opening on one person and one story. The second is a photography programme covering large-format portraiture, documentary photo essays and reportage, heading toward an exhibition in 2027.
Who Appears in the Series
The roster runs to 100 people across South Africa, the United States, Brazil, Argentina, the United Kingdom, Israel, Denmark, France and Italy. A sample:
– Michael Levitt, biophysicist and winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His father was born in Plunge.
– William Kentridge, contemporary artist. His family descends from cantors in Utena.
– Celso Lafer, jurist, diplomat and professor emeritus at the University of Sao Paulo. His family left Lithuania in the late 19th century.
– Peter Gelb, General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, with Lithuanian roots
through the family of violinist Jascha Heifetz of Vilnius.
– Michael Uslan, Executive Producer of the BATMAN movie franchise.
– Shaun Tomson, world champion surfer, author and keynote speaker, whose family left present-day Latvia in the early 1900s.
– Wendy Appelbaum, entrepreneur and philanthropist, whose grandfather emigrated from Lithuania to South Africa.
– Esther Wojcicki, educator and author of How to Raise Successful People.
Justice Albie Sachs, the South African judge and human rights activist, also sat for the project.
The Team Behind the Films
ORIGINS is made by an independent Lithuanian team. Kestutis Pikunas works as line producer and director, and leads the foundation. Rasa Vaisvile is production manager and director. Martynas Stankevicius is director of photography and editor. Paulius Stonys operates camera. Tadas Kazakevicius, whose large-format portrait work forms the photography strand, shoots stills. Jack Northover composes the score and designs the sound.
The team chose independent production over a studio commission. The reason is scheduling freedom: three years of filming, and the room to follow a story past the point where a commissioned schedule would close.
Why VIALET Supports the Project
VIALET is a Lithuanian electronic money institution working with clients across Europe and beyond. ORIGINS documents people who left this country and built careers in law, science, art, business and sport on four continents. The subject sits close to how our own client base looks. Supporting the project keeps a piece of that record in Lithuanian hands, produced in Vilnius, rather than dependent on outside funding.
Summary
VIALET sponsors ORIGINS, a five-part documentary series premiering in 2027, alongside 100 short films and a photography exhibition. The series traces 100 people across five continents whose families left Lithuania and the region. The short films are live now at originsdocumentary.com. To find out more about VIALET and our work, visit vialet.eu.
