Warmblooded and Earthbound
Eglė Budvytytė
‘How soft do you want to become? Is being soft even a good thing? I don’t know, I don’t know?’
Warmblooded and Earthbound is a film exploring intimacies between the land and the body. The work delves into themes of ritual, death, clay, care and community. Set against Lithuanian landscapes, the film traverses river shores and various limestone and clay quarries, dissolving the hierarchy between body and landscape to better understand them as deeply intertwined.
The choreographed scenes and song lyrics draw inspiration from multiple sources, including the twentieth-century Lithuanian archeologist Marija Gimbutas’ research and theories on Neolithic matrilineal societies, focusing on their burial rituals and the non-separability between the sacred and the everyday.
2024, single-channel, color, sound, 27’40”, in loop
Directed by Egle Budvytytė
Voice, melodies and song lyrics: Egle Budvytytė
Performed by and co-created with: Ming Jou Chen, Fazle Shairmahomed, Noha Ramadan, Tomislav Feller, Esther Mugambi, Kristina Skaldina, Saulė Budvytyte, Alexandra Krivulina
Costumes, props and outside eye support: Marija Olšauskaite
DOP: Narvydas Naujalis / DOP assistance: Rapolas Sakalas Gorodeckis & Edgaras Naujalis
Boom: Mykolas Beišys
Colour grading: Justinas Vencius
Editing: Bart Groenendaal
Sound compositions and design: Steve Martin Snider
Mixing and mastering: Maarten Brijker
Production assistance: Skaistė Matijošiute
Clay figurines: Kristina Skaldina
Supported by Frac il de France, Mondriaan Fonds, Institut Français, Nederlands Film Fonds
Eglė Budvytytė
°1981, Lithuania
Eglė Budvytytė is an artist working at the intersection between visual and performing arts. She approaches movement and gesture as technologies for a possible subversion of normativity, gender and social roles and for dominant narratives governing public spaces. Her practice, spanning across songs, poetry, videos and performances, explores the persuasive power of collectivity, vulnerability and permeable relationships between bodies, audiences and the environments.
Eglė Budvytytė’s work has been shown at the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, Le Plateau, Frac Île-de-France in Paris, the Nam June Paik Art Center in Yongin, Vleeshal in Middelburg, the Renaissance Society in Chicago, Canal Projects, New York, the Lofoten International Art Festival, the Block Universe festival in London, Art Dubai commissions, the 19th Biennale of Sydney, De Appel Arts Centre, Amsterdam, CAC in Vilnius, and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. She was a resident at Le Pavillon, Palais de Tokyo (Paris, FR, 2012), and at Wiels Contemporary Art Centre (Brussels, BE, 2013). In 2026, Eglė Budvytytė will represent Lithuania at the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. She lives and works in Amsterdam and Vilnius.
Photo: Eglė Budvytytė © Alexandre Guirkinger