Discoveries from Latvia World Cinema

A high-school folk dancing group heads to Latvian School Youth Song and Dance Festival, an event that takes place every five years and is part of the Latvian national identity – this is the culmination point of five years of work. Away from their homes and parents, they spend seven days and nights together. They are 18 and have just graduated, and this seems to be the last idle summer of their lives. Dreams mix with boredom, silly jokes with serious conversations. Taking care of one another creates affection and grows into a collective power. There are thousands like them at the festival. Every individual sensation turns into a common celebration that becomes more than just a tradition.

Comedy Latvia annual stand-up celebration and awarding of the best comedians of 2022.

An observation of Latvia and its inhabitants over the course of 16 Sundays. An older woman popping to a cornershop next to her house in her morning dress at the height of winter, while some young men venture out to bathe in the sea through a hole cut in the ice. A bunch of seagulls getting excited at the sight of fishermen by the National Library. A group of Krishnaites singing their songs in a park in the spring, while some older men try to focus on their chess.

An insight into who Kondrāts Ubāns was – painter, teacher, father, friend.

The authors of the film attempt to answer the questions: Why was the Latvian Legion created? Who were the Latvian legionnaires in World War II – victims, Nazis, or heroes? The film uses materials from the Latvian State Film, Photo and Sound Archive and the memories of former legionnaires.

Annual celebration of Comedy Latvia and Roast event of a Latvian celebrity Renārs Zeltiņš.

An educational film about the Internet. What is the INTERNET? And how to deal with it? The film is intended for children and adults who are just starting to get acquainted with modern means of communication and information. Friend Čatiņš teaches a boy how to behave on the Internet.

Anete lives next to the Daugava National Stadium, where rehearsals for the National Song and Dance Festival take place all day long, so the melody of "Cūkas driķos" is her constant soundtrack. Her boyfriend accidentally leaves her locked in the flat, "Cūkas driķos" keeps blasing through the window, and she's about to lose it.

Victor (31) has a rare form of cancer in an advanced stage; moreover, his wife is about to divorce him. Trapped in the antechamber of death and with his family falling to pieces, he knows that perhaps the most important decisions of his life must be taken here and now.

After receiving an edict from the municipal authorities about the closing of their school, the students at Mežvidi primary school continue to attend lessons and exercise creativity and fun, but it’s all clouded in a sense of fatality. They aren’t many students, and because of that the school resembles a large family rather than an institution. Near the Russian border, deep in the Latgale region, this place will become a nowhere-land once the youth depart. In an intimate message about a national problem, the story focuses on three sisters for whom life is about to drastically change. Through their daily lives and small adventures we try to understand the real meaning of the contention that “the countryside is dying”. And we see hope.

Once some "round" intellectuals and also "square" pragmatic realists lived in a town. The "rounds" were smart and successful. The reason of their success - they could swallow toads. But no toads were swallowed by a "square". They lived in peace until one day a "square" discovered that the "rounds" swallow toads.

Latgale is a land on the very eastern edge of the European Union. Sometimes it seems like a land in the middle of a body of water. At other times, it seems a desert with the ark of rescued humanity all covered by sand. The film presents a land that is made by people, spiritual and physical extremes of living and thoroughly Christian resurrection.

A documentary about the band of Latvian exile musicians, "Čikāgas piecīši".

Set in the emotional ruins of the post-Soviet space, this film follows a trans woman through her second year after transition. Haunted by family, silence, and the remnants of her former self, she begins to break free. Thailand becomes her place of rebirth — not escape, but transformation. The film reclaims Nietzsche’s concept of the Overman — not as a cold superhuman ideal, but as a fragile, feminine figure shedding skin through pain, love, and spiritual resistance.

People gather in the woods to learn about cameras

Imanta allows others to look into her way of life. Her grandparents emigrated from Latvia during World War II. Parents grew up and met in the United States, but Imanta have closed the circle of family by returning to her grandparents homeland. How was this road? The documentary «Return» allows you to look behind the scenes of a personal story - how to move to Latvia if you have lived abroad so far? Imanta herself tells her story through video and photo documentation.

A film examining the game of doubles of democracy and capitalism since the restoration of independence in Latvia. Freedom from the USSR, pilfering the state, victory in Eurovision, joining the EU and NATO, the greatest crisis in the world – a quarter century of contrast and challenges.

Baron Munchausen’s string of victories against the Turks is disrupted by a love letter from his bride, Jacobine von Dunten, propelling the Baron into an adventure-filled journey back to her.

A dreamer by nature, Quanqi Zhu decides to set up a unique installation at the hillside of Sacred Songshan mountain in China. Despite the language barrier, his best companion is Latvian architect Austris Mailitis. As the building of the object begins, the creators themselves have to levitate between cultural differences, conventions and personal ambitions.

An exceptional museum in Sweden houses the Vasa sailboat – a ship that has been lifted out from the bottom of the sea where it ended up after an unfortunate maiden voyage. One day, the museum staff notice a rat in the boat’s hull and begin setting traps to catch the rodent before it damages this brilliant museum piece; however, as it turns out, the rat is not alone. In fact, there are surprisingly many of them. The staffs’ attempts to get rid of the rodents prove futile. And, because of its gentle Swedish upbringing, even the cat they bring in doesn’t help. They need to call in the experts – the Rescue Team!

The late 1950s. Every night, Soviet tractors comb the coast of Latvia looking for signs of anyone who could have infiltrated the Soviet border from the sea. One morning, three Soviet patrolmen discover a woman’s shoe in the sand and footsteps leading to the quaint little village of Liepaja.

"Kurzeme is in the voices—the voices of windmills and airplanes, fishing boats and ocean liners, land and sea, the elderly and children, victims and heroes… In our voices." A text by Jānis Peters, read by actor Juris Strenga, accompanies the story of Kurzeme—its history and present day. Turning the pages of a harsh history filled with wars and revolutionaries, the “price lists” of medieval executioners, and the tragedy of Zlēki during World War II, the film returns to the summer of 1969, bringing together various characters and events.

Jānis or Johann Steinhauer (1705-1779) was the first Latvian entrepreneur and politician who stood for Latvian rights in Riga, a spiritual leader of Herrnhuters and generous benefactor who started the national awakening of Latvians a hundred years before New Latvians’ movement. Architect Pēteris Blūms has researched Steinhauer’s amazing life for 40 years. German musician Jöran Steinhauer had lived in Riga for many years and fully blended in the local cultural environment. The two men meet to find out if Johann and Jöran are related.

Dagnis suffered in a serious accident that took place almost 30 years ago. He's had to learn to live with his disability and also his insomnia and loneliness, as he feels people are afraid of him. Now Dagnis has other worries: he's got a video camera in his hands for the first time of his life, and he has to make a film. He walks around the village of Vaidava, films and comments on everything he sees and hears. We have the opportunity to look at the life of a small Latvian village through Dagnis’s eyes. What does Dagnis think about the environment around him, the society and its ability to accept others?

It’s summer in a village by the sea, and a retired actor once again invites locals to participate in an open-air opera performance. During the past ten years they’ve staged many classical operas; this year it’s time for Schoenberg and Verdi.

Cat lives in an antique wood cabinet with his devoted friend Mouse. There is an apple orchard on the fringes of the old town. But this autumn, while Cat is picking apples, things turn out differently. All of a sudden a strange egg rolls into the orchard.

The director of the film looks at his father, photographer and non-conformist, from a drone’s perspective, as he digs a grave humming his childhood song.

The story of Marģers Vestermanis is special since he is one of the few Holocaust survivors in Latvia. Can you live a full and targeted life after your family has been murdered but you have undergone through ghetto and concentration camp? Not everyone has managed – many remained trapped in the past and were not able to find the strength of living on. If you asked Marģers Vestermanis, he would most probably say that there was no other choice for him. However, this film is not only a story about Marģers Vestermanis who survived Holocaust. This is a story about man's place after surviving a tragedy, about how it changes him and the ones around him. And it is also a story about us.

The code to unlocking this feature documentary is 1949, the year the director was born, and also the year of the return of Soviet repressions to Latvia. The film tells a very personal story against the background of less visited historic events – the death of director’s father due to the KGB repressions, which is closely linked to the devious game Soviet Latvia’s KGB played against Swedish-British-American spy agencies.

Influenced by the mood of the winter solstice, a story is raised about the approach of lonely creatures in the bustle of the holiday, in the mysterious light of the campfire flame and the Moon. Snow is falling, everyone is dancing, and everyone is finding a mate. But there is Christmas!

An attempt to capture the feeling of emptiness and nostalgia, reflecting it as reality in the Latvian rural landscape, partly from the observer's position, but also questioningly - what is the future of these rural areas? What is the relationship of contemporary society in Latvia with the Soviet legacy? Does it have a place to survive today and in the future, or were the materials, structures and philosophy used in Soviet times not sustainable enough to remain as witnesses to the history our country has experienced? This work is the author's personal observations of people who have remained in the countryside and possibly still live in the past or even idealize the past, and is therefore, without condemnation, a tribute to them.

Experts believe that there are ten pairs of European rollers (Coracias garrulus) in Latvia. In 1997, one of these birds was hit by a car. Biologist Edmunds Račinskis is trying to encourage green magpies to nest in Latvia by putting up artificial birdhouses, but people are too busy to pay attention to rare birds and think that the green shrike is a symbol rather than a real bird species.

A guy decides to take a break from everyone and leaves for a country house together with his beloved dog. The dog disappears. As he keeps on hopelessly searching for it, he comes across his own fear of loneliness.

In two monumental symbols of the national awareness sculptor Kārlis Zāle has immortalized his vision about the state of Latvia. Freedom Monument is the statement of the sculptor’s love for his native country. Kārlis Zāle with his characteristic monumental touch sees life in large and powerful lines; the same way he perceives also sculpture that requires much vital force and daring. The full-length documentary “The Wounded Rider” is based on facts from the life of the sculptor Kārlis Zāle and documents on the construction of the Freedom Monument, providing insight in the political and social scene of the age and presenting outstanding figures in the culture and art together with the ideals of that time.

A creative a portrait of Latvian luger and Olympic medal winner, Martins Rubenis, who won the first Latvia's Winter Olympic medal of the games in Turin in 2006. Apart from his success in sports, in the circles of contemporary alternative culture he is known as DJ Betons from the association Varka Kru (Varka – from Russian "boiling", Kru – from English "crew"). Like the medieval knight Lohengrin, Martins Rubenis arrives in his luge to fight a battle - with an adversary, with himself, with time and the world.

A portrait of the witty, artistic, and at times sarcastic Latvian composer Mārtiņš Brauns.

Two twenty-somethings from Latvia meet in the south of France. Leo studies restoration, Anna has lived in Marseille for some time and works as a hairdresser. Also, she looks very much like the image of a girl that Leo has uncovered restoring an altar painting.

A father goes to work in the morning, leaving his young son at home. The boy decides to take care of the birds he sees in the backyard, which he thinks have no real home. He builds a birdhouse and eventually the birds flock to his caring owner's backyard garden. When the parents return home in the evening, they find that the previously quiet and peaceful mansion is surrounded not only by birds but by a veritable garden of beasts...

Comedy Latvia" roast, which was held in the best "Roast" traditions. This year, the main guest was local rapper Edavārdi.

Docu-story about the legendary Latvian climber – Teodors Kirsis. The story of the first Latvians who reached the world's highest peaks after the restoration of the country's independence.

A young man - Rens arrives to the apartment building in microdistrict. Shutting himself off from the world around him, he settles in one of the apartments in the house, which only has a television and a collection of videotapes. Spending his days in the secluded environment, his only "guests" are the neighbor-woman in the opposite window of the house, the food delivery girl Mon and a dark being whose rare visits are unpredictable and yet closely related to the "burdens" the young man brought with him from the past. Over time, trust and affection for the not- so-talkative food delivery girl grows, and the connection between the apparitions in the apartment and Ren's guests becomes more and more obvious. The real begins to merge with the unreal, the stroboscopic fragmentaryness of consciousness drives Ren into a corner and he is forced to find a solution.

The guards of honour stand in front of the historical symbol of the state. No matter what season and weather is out there, they fulfil their duty. Is there a limit beyond which this honourable duty begins to look exaggerated?

A female ninja tries to break ties with her spiritual teacher. The seemingly unexpected and humiliating death of her teacher is only the beginning of this process; it is a decisive step in her life. The action takes place in a specific environment, and the characters, references, symbols, and movements are directly related to the history of cinema, more specifically, to Japanese ninja films made in the 1930s–1960s.

Interviews were conducted over a seven year period with 670 people who were deported to Siberia as children in 1941. Fragments of their memories form a mosaic revealing their past experiences of losing fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters. Time heals, but nothing is forgotten and the stories must be told.

In Soviet Latvia, a family spends a day by the lake. Father and son play ball, but the ball falls into the water. The father almost drowns trying to retrieve the ball, but is saved by an angler.

Based on interviews with over one hundred people including musicians, hockey fans, farmers, executives, and pensioners in the market. From Latvian President Vaira Vike- Freiberga and business tycoon Aivars Lembergs, to Russian poet Sergei Timofeyev, all discussions stem from one question: What does it mean to be Latvian?

She comes at night, quiet as a cat, to take his sleep away until he feeds her. All she needs is milk brought by him somewhere between sleep and reality. Her name is Insomnia.

Educational film about salmon. From caviar to a trip to the sea and a return back to the native rivers. Dedicated to the protection of salmon.

One time on New Year's Eve, Tintin experiences something crazy: it seems that his whole family is involved in a massacre: New Year's Eve Massacre.

About a toddler who didn't want to sleep.

A film about Mārtiņš Freimanis and the band Tumsa - a glimpse into the behind-the-scenes life of the singer, composer, and poet - at home and in public. Colleagues and like-minded people, the journey of a song - from conception to the listener.