BLON Festival Director Discusses the State of Lithuanian Animation and the Festival’s Future (EXCLUSIVE)

BLON Animation and Games Festival has had a record year. The event is part of the Northern Animation Network, which includes animation festivals in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Held in the Lithuanian port city of Klaipėda, BLON has celebrated Lithuanian animation, games, and VR, as well as projects from across the Baltic region, since 2015. In 2026, the festival staged its biggest edition yet, welcoming a record number of guests, selling out festival passes, and presenting its largest film selection to date.

That growth coincides with what festival director Laura Almantaitė describes as an upward trajectory for Lithuanian animation, driven by funding from the Lithuanian Film Centre and growth in the VR sector. Over the past three years, several Lithuanian VR works have been selected for the Venice Film Festival.

“I’d say this is because we are a technological culture,” Almantaitė explained to Cartoon Brew in an interview before the festival’s closing ceremony.

It was also recently announced that Lithuania is developing an animated feature: a co-production with France and Belgium based on the Lithuanian comic book Siberian Haiku.

“It’s a very anticipated work because it’s going to be our first real Lithuanian film based on a Lithuanian story,” Almantaitė said. “It will also give a boost to the industry in terms of visibility, but also in terms of the development of the talent inside the industry. We’re headed into a very nice phase of growth at the moment. And we’re very excited to see what happens next.”

Although BLON has been around for more than a decade, Lithuanian animation became a dedicated part of the festival only three years ago. Until then, organizers simply had not received enough submissions to devote an entire program to Lithuanian work.

This year’s official selection featured films by students and established professionals, spanning 2D, 3D, stop motion, and hybrid techniques. The selection underscores that Lithuanian animation has yet to develop a unifying identity, while also highlighting the talent and imagination of the artists building the country’s industry.

As Almantaitė tells it, Lithuania’s animation industry has grown slowly, with funding and animation schools lagging behind those in other Baltic countries. The Lithuanian Film Centre supports disproportionately fewer animated projects than live-action ones. And because Lithuania has no historic animation studio like those in neighboring countries — such as Dauka in Latvia or Nukufilm in Estonia — no unifying style or approach has emerged.

A survey conducted by BLON in collaboration with Sweden’s Rex Animation Film Festival found that Lithuanian animators instead embrace an eclectic range of styles and techniques. Rather than reflecting a single national identity, their work showcases an industry slowly building itself from the ground up.

According to Almantaitė, the “power, the strength, and the passion of the animation community” has allowed the industry to develop little by little.

“Lithuania has always had talented animators, but there hasn’t been an organized or structured industry. It’s more about the creatives and the artists who learned from each other.”

As Siberian Haiku prepares to enter production and bring more attention to Lithuanian animation, BLON is confronting a downside to its biggest year yet: a lack of space. This year, the festival featured five competition programs in addition to its games and VR offerings. As a result, more than 70 animated films screened at a single venue, an uncommon setup for an international festival.

“Our most practical challenge right now is infrastructure,” Almantaitė told Cartoon Brew. “This is part of a larger problem with independent theaters in Lithuania, as most of them closed down or were demolished after the Soviet era. We have different options we have to ponder, but for the time being, we will celebrate this year’s success and look at the future with optimism.”