“Sublime Thirst” is a documentary grounded in the Lithuanian Free Market Institute’s interdisciplinary study of scarcity. It tells, in chronological order, the story of how the phenomenon of scarcity was discovered and how its understanding evolved in the history of ideas—from the ancient Greeks to today—while revealing why recognizing this phenomenon matters to people now.

“We wanted to share the wonder we felt when, beginning this interdisciplinary research, we discovered that scarcity is not only an economic phenomenon. It is not just the pressure of the material world that we all experience each morning—rushing to work, lacking resources and knowledge.

We realized that scarcity is absolutely universal—an inseparable part of the created world. Everything created—people, animals, nature—bears the mark of scarcity. Scarcity takes many forms; we experience spiritual scarcity and a scarcity of fellowship. Crucially, scarcity acts as a catalyst.

Lacking fellowship, we seek people, friendship, knowledge, and meaning. As we delve deeper, we understand that the entire development of humankind is founded on scarcity and on humanity’s response to this phenomenon,” says the idea’s author and project initiator Elena Leontjeva.

Released in 2018, the film features insights on scarcity and its importance in contemporary discourse from more than ten specialists, including project initiator Elena Leontjeva, Bishop Kęstutis Kėvalas, physicist Prof. Mikas Vengris, textual scholar Prof. Paulius Subačius, philosophers Prof. Albinas Plėšnys and Dr. Naglis Kardelis, economist Žilvinas Šilėnas, anthropologist Saulius Matulevičius, psychologist Dr. Rita Rekašiūtė Balsienė, Brother Matas, and others.

“In genre terms, it’s an essay film—a philosophical documentary. We speak with representatives of various fields and ask what scarcity means to them. We try to show the multifaceted nature of scarcity,” says co-director Ramūnas Aušrotas.

The film was shot at various locations in Vilnius: Church of St. Stephen, Church of Christ the Redeemer, Kaunas Evangelical and Reformed Church, the P. Smuglevičius and White Halls and the Czesław Miłosz Reading Room at Vilnius University’s Central Library, the Lithuanian Technical Library, and the Center for Physical and Technological Sciences.

Since 2022, the documentary has been available on the LRT Mediateka and can also be watched on LRT Epika.