Born in 1964, Utena. Lives in Vilnius.

The films and video works of Deimantas Narkevičius often mismatch constituent narrative elements, questioning the process of filmmaking and the way it constructs a system of representation close to a testimony of truth, which in turn has great impact on our perception of reality. As he composes his films at the crossroads of past and present, of subjective and collective behaviour, he examines both the freedom and the boundaries of the fictional documentary genre.
The Role of a Lifetime (2003) has several overlapping spatiotemporal layers: the main narrative thread is an interview with the film director Peter Watkins, one of the pioneers of docudrama, whose politically engaged films set out to change the understanding of the documentary genre. The audio recording of the interview is juxtaposed with drawings by the Lithuanian artist Mindaugas Lukošaitis and amateur Super-8 film clips of people enjoying Brighton, taken from British film archives. The questions in the interview are not heard, and Watkins' gently flowing monologue touches upon questions of realism and fiction, of construct and the recreation of reality, the question of objective form, and his interest in filmmaking not only for creative, but for political and social reasons, which resulted in his work becoming increasingly marginalised. Through a subtle montage of moments in which statements by Watkins converge and diverge with its pictorial elements, the film works as a powerful declaration of belief in the necessity of critical and self-critical thinking in art, and is almost a manifesto for both artists.