NAMAI (2020)

Found Footage, Documentary, Short

Namai is a found footage documentary originally created for the Fungi Film Fest 2020, which went on to win Best of Fest.

Mushrooms loom large in the Lithuanian consciousness; it’s embedded in the food, the folklore. The first Lithuanian word I learned as a child was grybų (mushroom). Using the framework of mushroom hunting, and mushrooms themselves, Namai is a small study of the Lithuanian diaspora — one family’s journey from Lithuania to working class immigrants outside Boston.

The main visuals of Namai are taken from 8mm home movies shot by my great-aunt Helen in the late 1950s. The audio is taken from a phone call with my father, as he talks about mushrooming (or grybauti) as a child.

I was interested in exploring how customs travel overseas, how a new life feeds off the remains of a former life, and the invisible labor of women that shelters children and encourages their growth.

After screening with the Fungi Film Fest, Namai was presented at the Radical Mycology Convergence; it was also included in a Best Of Fungi Film Fest tour which screened with additional mycology-minded festivals in Austria, Germany and Norway.