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Amos Lassen wrote on 12/12/2011:

I doubt that many of us think about Lithuania as a gay Mecca or even a place where there is a gay population. “Porno Melodrama” was made as a reaction to the state’s homophobia policy and it does so in a very clever way. It is an original story about how dangerous love can become. Jonas and his boyfriend, Matas, enjoy life together but Jonas wants to leave Lithuania because of its terrible homophobia. In order to make money to do so, he acts in a porn film with his ex-girlfriend and there is a danger that Akvile may want him back.
Jonas and Akvile were together all the time and have been since they went to school together. Both had dreams of becoming great actors but then Matas came along and changed everything and the two men fell in love. Akvile was heartbroken and took a job in the porn industry but he still loves Jonas and thought of him all the time. She finally was able to convince him to be in a film with her and Jonas agreed because the money he would earn would get him and Matas out of Lithuania.
Lithuania has the “Protection of Children” law which bans everything that has anything to do with homosexuality, bisexuality and polygamy so that minors will not see anything about them. Human rights organizations universally have protested the law as did the European Parliament and Lithuania’s president. It was amended to read to “ban to spread information that would promote sexual relations or other conceptions of concluding a marriage or creating a family other than established in the Constitution or the Civil Code“. This film challenges that law.
Lithuania won its independence in 1990 and in 1993, homosexuality was decriminalized. Things began to get better with the hopes that the country would be recognized as part of Europe and in 2004, Lithuania became part of the European Union and NATO. Then things began to change and when things began to go bad economically in 2008, the conservative government decided that it needed help from the older members of the nation who were raised in the Soviet Union and they used homophobia as a way to get to them. In the summer of 2009, the law changed and even though it has been amended it is still quite homophobic. The law quite boldly states the mention of homosexuals in schools and that marriage is in accordance with civil codes.
The film is powerful and is a direct reaction to the horribly homophobic law. When it premiered at the Berlin film festival, it was cheered and now we have a chance to see it.