Rose

10/26/2023

Rožytė (Vida Gumbytė) was a Vilnius street icon, whom I met in person a couple times. She was a warm and friendly beggar, known to many visitors of our old town by her distinctive multi-layered and very colorful dressing style, and very genuine makeup. I knew from some old articles that she lived in a village outside Vilnius, and would commute to the city and back by train pretty much every day, until she died a couple years ago. I hoped that this film would be a proper tribute to her life. I hoped it would tell the viewers things like her backstory, what she did in her youth, how her typical beggar day would look, how people would interact with her, whether she had any memorable encounters she'd like to share, stuff like that. But there was none of that. Instead, the film focuses