Agnė Jokšė and Su Friedrich: Unconditional Love and Rules of the Road

Join us at e-flux Screening Room on Tuesday, May 16 at 7pm for a screening of Agnė Jokšė’s Unconditional Love (2021, 50 minutes) and Unconditional Love Extended (2023, 6 minutes), and Su Friedrich’s Rules of the Road (1993, 31 minutes), curated by Inesa Brašiškė. The films will be followed by a discussion between Jokšė and Friedrich.

Unconditional Love consists of several interlinked chapters, exploring themes related to care, compassion, and love through the lens of intergenerational relations that were constituted in parallel to the societal and political changes taking place in Lithuania around the 1990s, while transitioning from the Soviet Union and its economic and ideological models into the independent state of today (and its neoliberal, capitalist, and so-called western ideology). With this specific geography and sociopolitical context in mind, Agnė Jokšė questions how two sociologically distinct generations —the so-called “lost” and “independence” generations, formed prior to the 1990s transition period and born after the reestablishment of sovereign Lithuania, respectively—became so connected while remaining politically and ideologically far apart. How do generational clashes affect the relationship dynamics between these two groups that are often closely linked by family bonds? In Unconditional Love, Jokšė observes and follows the thread of family relations as it takes her to seemingly ordinary, but tender emotional places. By filming her extended family in Lithuania and the Lithuanian diaspora in Europe, she chronicles their rituals and collects their memories in an attempt to piece together the portrait of the “lost” generation that her parents belong to. Even though Jokšė’s research originates in the idea of generational divide and cultural trauma, the space of Unconditional Love is tranquil. It reaches beyond disappointment or conflict into a state of shared familiarity, where the two generations are resigned, resting, joking, worrying, and sharing with each other. The hours reveal the banality of unconditional love and its necessity and brilliance against the banality of evil.

Rules of the Road tells the story of a love affair and its demise through one of the objects shared by the couple: an old beige station wagon with fake wood panel. A typical American family car for an atypical American family, it provides the women at first with all the familiar comforts. But when their relationship ends, the car becomes the property of one and the bane of the other’s existence. Even long after their separation, this tangible reminder of their life together—and thousands of its imitators—continues to prowl the streets of the city, haunting the woman who no longer holds the keys either to the car or the other woman’s heart. Through spoken text, popular music, and images from the streets of New York, Rules of the Road takes a somewhat whimsical, somewhat caustic look at how our dreams of freedom, pleasure, security, and family are so often symbolized by the automobile.

With thanks to the Lithuanian Culture Institute and the Lithuanian cultural attaché in New York, and to the Danish Arts Foundation for their support.

For more information, contact program@e-flux.com.

Accessibility                 
–Two flights of stairs lead up to the building’s front entrance at 172 Classon Avenue.      
–For elevator access, please RSVP to program@e-flux.com. The building has a freight elevator which leads into the e-flux office space. Entrance to the elevator is nearest to 180 Classon Ave (a garage door). We have a ramp for the steps within the space.               
–e-flux has an ADA-compliant bathroom. There are no steps between the Screening Room and this bathroom.