Dog Owners

A vignette film weaves together encounters between dog owners, where conversations about their beloved pets unveil deeper truths about themselves. Intertwined stories explore love, transformation, and human connection.

An omnibus film featuring short stories of dog owner encounters. In talking about their pets, they are really talking about themselves. The dogs become intermediaries for the human communication. The situations do not involve big dramatic events; akin to a voyeur, the camera lands in a park, on a street, or rides by in a car, providing us snippets of stories that make us realise between the lines: a couple we're seeing are ex-lovers; the relationship between a mother and her daughter is transforming with the arrival of dogs; a girl finds a new friend on the way to school, only to lose him hours later, etc.
The stories are tied together by the figure of a lost dog, who keeps popping up here and there as a secondary character, as well as its owners, pacing the streets of Vilnius in their car, trying to find it.

An omnibus film featuring short stories of dog owner encounters. In talking about their pets, they are really talking about themselves. The dogs become intermediaries for the human communication. The situations do not involve big dramatic events; akin to a voyeur, the camera lands in a park, on a street, or rides by in a car, providing us snippets of stories that make us realise between the lines: a couple we're seeing are ex-lovers; the relationship between a mother and her daughter is transforming with the arrival of dogs; a girl finds a new friend on the way to school, only to lose him hours later, etc.
The stories are tied together by the figure of a lost dog, who keeps popping up here and there as a secondary character, as well as its owners, pacing the streets of Vilnius in their car, trying to find it.
Also, poop and poop bags have an important role here. The stories are dotted with observations on how people deal with dog excrement. Dogs do expose this rather intimate part of daily life. And besides merely depicting mundane chores, it becomes a metaphor in the light of the characters' behavioural patterns and problems.

Director's note:
The main idea is to make a film about people through dogs. The film would consist of several different short stories featuring the encounters between dog owners. The overarching themes are: loneliness, the search for connection, the divergences of people and time, the wish / the inability to express oneself, the personification of dogs. The storytelling method is observational, devoid of major dramatic events, focusing on the poetry of everyday life.

Producer's note:
Dovilė Šarutytė's attention to everyday details and her ability to act almost naturalistically portraying the flow of life sets her apart from directors of her generation. In everyday situations, she is capable to see details and clues that reveal people's inner experiences and with gentle humor share it with the audience. And they respond to her in the same way - sending her letters from different countries with impressions and thanks. The director's debute Feature Film About Life which received positive reviews from film critics, was awarded the Special Jury Prize at Transilvania IFF 2022 and Young Jury Award for Best Feature Film at Valencia Cinema Jove IFF 2022 and is still actively traveling around festivals, consolidated her distinctive style (which already can be noticed in the bright student short film I Know You). The director herself names it as Everyday Poetry.