
“These Small Letters Can Cause Such Instability”: DP Paulius Kontijevas on The Librarians

The Librarians shines a light on the people on the frontlines of the ongoing war on education, focusing on the renewed wave of book bans in Florida, New Jersey, and especially Texas. The film, directed by Kim Snyder (Us Kids) is part of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival’s Premieres section.
Paulius Kontijevas (camera op on Janet Planet) and Derek Wiesehahn (How to Survive a Plague, Welcome to Chernobyl) served as the film’s cinematographers. Below, Kontijevas talks about lighting and staging interviews that protect librarians’ anonymity and the beauty of light refracting through glass.
Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job?
Kontijevas: Director Kim A. Snyder, producers Janique L. Robillard and Maria Cuomo-Cole and I worked on another film, a short documentary, Death By Numbers (Oscar shortlist 2025) about a school shooting survivor and her journey through her writing in confronting the shooter in court. This film helped us create certain attributes such as trust, calmness and like-mindedness, which led us to collaborate on The Librarians.
Filmmaker: What were your artistic goals on this film, and how did you realize them?
Kontijevas: Authenticity and protecting our cast were very important to us. We filmed anonymous librarians using their silhouette and, at times, heavy filtration like the Linear Prism FX filter to create artifacts in the frame. It was important to see our anonymous librarians in a way that was both creative and powerful yet protected their identity and respected their privacy.
Filmmaker: How did you want your cinematography to enhance the film’s storytelling and treatment of its characters?
Kontijevas: We approached this film with a vérité style of filming. We did many scenes where we let our librarians talk to each other and to our director Kim, sometimes with no large agenda except for everybody to be acquainted and comfortable with each other. Many of our librarians have not been on camera before, and it took a ton of courage to do so. It was important for me to be present and close to our librarians as to not distract with the camera’s presence but be more of a silent observer to the discussion. And in that approach to filming, the cinematography presents itself simply as a witness.
Filmmaker: Were there any specific influences on your cinematography, whether they be other films, or visual art, of photography, or something else?
Kontijevas: I’m a big fan of light refracting through glass. It’s unpredictable and always somewhat imperfect as far as consistency. Filming with librarians who wished to remain anonymous, it was a clear challenge to protect their identity and so using a prism filter in front of the lens helped create just a little more chaos to the already heavy silhouetted frame.
We also used a Laowa 24mm Periproble lens, which helped us put the lens inside books adding a sense of importance and weight to some of the books featured in the film. There’s something beautiful about a book, how it’s bound and covered in letters which form words to sentences and finally ideas. I hope that when our film watchers are spinning in a periprobe lens through a book, they can think of how these small letters can cause such instability in our world.
Filmmaker: What were the biggest challenges posed by production to those goals?
Kontijevas: This film has been in production for three years and over 60 shooting days between Texas, Florida and New Jersey, and so with scheduling and conflicts I wasn’t always able to shoot every scene. We filmed many scenes with many librarians to find our main characters and to tell the best story we can. Finding a camera operator or 2nd unit DP who can be there “tomorrow” to pick up a school board meeting, a state hearing, or even a last-minute interview so the librarian’s memory stays fresh was certainly challenging at times. But we had a great team, and we built a small network of trusted crew who would be up for the challenge. Derek Wiesehahn and I are credited as DPs of the film, but we also had support from Amy Bench, Mark Birnbaum, Michael Rowley and Emily Topper.
Filmmaker: What camera did you shoot on? Why did you choose the camera that you did? What lenses did you use?
Kontijevas: We mainly shot on the Sony Fx9 with a Fujinon Cabrio 19-90 at 5K crop. We also had an FX6 with 24-70 and 70-200 GM lenses as B cam and for more nimble or fly on the wall filming we used the A7III mirrorless camera to help and not attract attention to us filming. The Sony ecosystem allowed us to keep our footage consistent in the same color space as well as keep it accessible when we needed last minute scenes filmed and needed to find additional cameras.
Filmmaker: Describe your approach to lighting.
Kontijevas: Our lighting takes a path from virtually none to a few scenes that were lit with an Aputure 600x and the lightdome 150 as well as a few small light panels that are easy to pack and travel with. Our approach was to keep a natural look, and oftentimes we filmed in the moment scenes where setting up lights just wasn’t an option. This helps the film be an honest insight into what librarians are up against in their journey for sharing knowledge, justice and equality.