Born in 1967, Sonata Žalneravičiūtė is a Lithuanian film and art expert. She studied violin at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre and art criticism at the Vytautas Magnus University. From 1996 to 1998, she worked as the curator of film and video art at the Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius where she organised and coordinated the Franco-Baltic Video Art Festival, as well as a retrospective on Jonas Mekas and the Sustabdytos akimirkos exhibition. In 1996, she created a video collection The Best Films of Lithuanian Video Art, and also worked as a journalist for the culture programme Ženklai. From 2002 to 2005, she was an editor of the radio debate club Culture and Religion as well as the programme The Portrait. In 2002, she was a member of the CICAE Jury at the Berlinale. In 2004, Sonata worked as an administrator on the documentary Vulkanovka. After the Great Cinema. From 2002 to 2009, she worked as a programme director and coordinator at the Skalvija Cinema Centre. From 2002 to 2018, she was one of the organisers of the Vilnius Documentary Film Festival. From 2006 to 2010, she was a director of the New Russian Cinema Days in Vilnius. In 2016, she curated the exhibition Cinema Goes Through the City at the National Art Gallery. In 2018, she curated the Lithuanian Cinema Programme in Warsaw, Poland.
