At the Friday night screening of "The Other Dream Team" at the Tower
Theatre, the doc (in the U.S. Documentary Cinema category) received
warm applause from a packed house, including some who gave standing
ovations.

Director Marius Markevicius (familar to some for producing last
year's Grand Jury Prize dramatic winner "Like Crazy") and producer
Jon Weinbach attended the post-screening Q-and-A wearing tie-dyed
t-shirts worn by the Lithuanian basketball team during the 1992
Olympics.

The film documented the rise of Lithuanian basketball in the fomer
Soviet-controlled country and the team's uplifting
bronze-medal-winning tournament during the Olypmics in Barcelona.
(The team had no money to pay for uniforms, so the band The Grateful
Dead stepped up and paid for the distinctive uniforms.)

Markevicius said the film was a "passion project" for him, since both
of his parents emigrated to the U.S. from Lithuania and Lithuanian
was the first language he spoke. "I was born to make this film," he
said.

Markevicius was proud of his film, but wondered aloud if it would be
the last documentarry he would make, since dramatic features
generally feature shorter shoots. (This doc took three years to
make.) In addition, "It will be hard to find something that I'm as
passionate about," he said.

-- David Burger