Born in Siauliai, Lithuania, in 1964. He studied cinema at VGIK Institute, in Moscow. He made his directorial debut with the short movie Tofolaria (1986) and, in 1991, directed his first feature film: Three Days. Bartas is also the director of other features, such as Few of Us (1996), The House (1997), Freedom (2000), all presented at Mostra, and Seven Invisible Men (2005), Eastern Drift (2010), Peace to Us in Our Dreams (2015) and Frost (2017).