A lecture delivered at Vytautas Magnus University (VMU) on May 13, 2025, for students of the Faculty of Arts.
Gabriel M. Paletz’s teaching visit was made possible through the VMU Vytautas Kavolis Interdisciplinary Visiting Professorship Program for Lithuanian Diaspora Scholars.
The program is sponsored by the Dana Gedvila Fund at the Lithuanian Foundation.

Gabriel M. Paletz is film professor, scholar, programmer and critic of Lithuanian origins from Czech Republic. Dr. Paletz teaches cinema courses including “Learning from Awful Films” to students from five continents in Prague.

Among his publications, he has won the best essay prize from the Screenwriting Research Network for his article “Writing Sound in the Screenplay: Traditions and Innovations” and his book The Reinventions of Orson Welles is forthcoming from Edinburgh University Press.

He has penned film criticism for Variety and the magazine of the Cinémathèque Française while his latest film programs include a tribute to the great female screenwriters of Hollywood silent movies and “The Eastern European Cinema of the Absurd,” a series screened around the world that features restored films from eight national film archives, including Lithuania’s.