Until recently, the most mainstream Lithuanian character on-screen has been Dr Hannibal 'The Cannibal' Lecter, the central figure in Silence of the Lambs who, according to Thomas Harris' novels, was born into the Lithuanian aristocracy in 1933. But that all changed at this year's Sundance Film Festival when first-time director Marius Markevicius premiered his documentary The Other Dream Team, the miraculous story of the eccentric group of freshly-liberated Lithuanian basketball players who competed at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. Only two years after their nation's independence from the Soviet Union, this spirited bunch not only took out the Bronze medal, but were sponsored by hippie icons The Grateful Dead and collected their gongs in tie-dyed rainbow umbrella-shorts. The classic Hollywood hook – they faced-off against the Soviet Union for the medal. The only downside was that, given their average height of 7 feet, the team members attending the Park City premiere were asked to sit in the back row.
