Delta Zoo

In the '90s, every boy around the world -- even amidst cultural embargos -- was glued to VHS karate action films and dreamt of being a superhero. On March 11, 1990, a year before the formal dissolution of the Soviet Union, Lithuania became the first Soviet republic to declare itself independent. Reacting to Soviet aggression, the newly re-established Lithuanian Army Command decided to create the first-ever national crack commando unit and gave a selective group of young men the chance to be the "Rambos" of their country as members of a top-secret Special Forces Unit aimed at countering Soviet aggression. Most members were given an animal nickname - Spider, Horse, Whale, Crab -- hence the unit was known as the Zoo. And from parachute jumps and hand-to-hand combat training to securing the KGB building in Vilnius, at the beginning of the end of the USSR, DELTA ZOO, a playful documentary from filmmaker Andrius Lekavičius, utilizes first-person interviews, cleverly stylized animation, archival footage and original music to tell the hidden story of the first-ever Lithuanian Special Forces: a courageous, impassioned, and youthful endeavor against the powers that once were.