Discoveries from Latvia World Cinema

A girl who is being deported to concentration camp, experiences one of her peers being shot in front of her eyes.

A young couple, driving to their friend's wedding in the countryside, encounter unexpected obstacles on the way and, in order to make it to the important event, seek help from the nearest homestead.

A planned robbery, an unplanned murder. The film is based on notes taken after a meeting with one of the convicts.

A pensioner decided to treat his 100th birthday guests to a unique cake in the shape of the Tower of Pisa. But, alas, no one will bake such a cake! As always, the men of the Emergency Brigade save the day...

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.

A young boy's memoir of his childhood. If they are memories at all. The strained relationship with his father has never been resolved, and it has followed Mundis like a black ghost throughout his life. Will Mundis resolve his differences with his father and find love in this man's world?

The Crazy Fox is taken to a veterinary clinic, and the adventure of endless tests, twists and turns begins! Although the situation becomes extra challenging, when the doctor has to pull out fox’s bad tooth, the final medical diagnosis is – the Fox is healthy, but... crazy.

How the Stripped one and the Dotted one were playing in one sandbox and how it all ended.

An adaptation of Erich Kästner's book for children "Annaluise and Anton".

A potato farmer connects with the injured alien that crash-landed in his field, much to the chagrin of the local authorities.

Rubiks’ Road is a bicycle path built in the 1980s and named after Alfreds Rubiks, leader of the Latvian Communist party at the time. One of the most ferocious opposers to Latvia’s independence in the early 1990s and later elected to the European Parliament.

The film tells the story of a series of events, coincidences and accidents caused by World War I, which allowed Latvians, like many other nations, to fulfill their dream of having their own country in 1918. However, the foundations of the Latvian state were laid in November 1917 in Valka, when the largest Latvian parties and social movements established the Latvian Provisional National Council. Why did Valka become the epicenter of events? What gave strength and inspiration to the men who began to build a free and united Latvia? And how heavy is the clay from which a country is made? The answers to these questions will be sought by storyteller and actor Gundars Āboliņš, together with historians and lawyers Jānis Plepu, Ēriks Jēkabsons, Ineta Lipša, and Jānis Tomaševskis.

“Inga Can Hear” is a story about the 15-year old Inga, a girl caught between two worlds. Being the only hearing member of a deaf family residing in the remote Latvian countryside, Inga has been the family’s interpreter in the hearing world since the age of seven. Her role in the family has forced her to grow up very quickly and her personality fluctuates between a responsible young woman and a moody teenager. Inga is about to graduate from middle school and has to make a decision on what to do next. Inga’s head is full of questions. To pursue a career as an actress? To become a firefighter? What will happen to the family, for whom she has sometimes been the only link to the outside world?

World War II and Latvians – the second most affected nation in this slaughter of superpowers. However, the number of people drafted into the war and killed is only a statistic, behind which lies the tragedy of each individual and an entire nation. Latvians, ruled, deceived, and coerced by foreign powers, had to fight under foreign flags on both sides of the front. Brother against brother, father against son... It was not a Latvian war, because Latvians had nothing to gain from it. It was not even a war between good and evil, it was a war between red and brown.

In many isolated areas of Latgale, the postman is the only person who not only delivers letters, but also listens to the hearts of the locals. He is welcomed as a close friend with whom to share joys and sorrows and from whom to learn the latest news. Times are changing, life is becoming more modern, and small post offices, where neighbors could meet neighbors, are rapidly disappearing. The filmmakers visit the Krāslava post office and follow the postmen on their daily route, encountering both the warmth of Latgale and, at times, bitter reflections and bright hopes.

In the documentary, director Dzintra Geka has created an engaging portrait of Latvian painter Juris Jurjāns. The film delves into his world, embodying a visually rich narrative of freedom in art, life energy, and virtuosity. As always, Juris Jurjāns chooses beauty as the leading theme of his artist and refuses to conform to the rules dictated by old age. He continues to indulge in fine drinks, puffs cigars, and paints. Every day he travels to his studio, where he finds solace in his canvases.

The concert film includes 12 songs from all three of the band's albums, performed by Sudden Lights at their most ambitious open-air show to date at the Mežaparks Green Theater. In parallel with the concert songs, the band members reveal themselves in very personal, documentary-style sketches, where the line between reality and fiction disappears, thus giving viewers a glimpse into the souls of the band members.

Once upon a time, God kneaded clay in a beet pit and jokingly created a human being with one eye, one ear, one arm, and one leg. That is how humans came to be. Not entirely good, not entirely evil...

Helēna feels unfulfilled in her marriage to Rihards, a university lecturer. Together with their children Ēriks and Maija, they go to their house in the countryside to renovate it as Helēna hopes to soon be able to organise dance retreats there. More surprising than the dreariness of their relationship are the creatures that inhabit their forest house – fleshy caterpillars in the wallpaper, slithering worms on the dinner plates, and stag beetles on the damp walls. As the terror of the insects takes hold, Helēna and Rihards each take up positions on opposing front lines in a war that also uncovers the children’s phobias and losses they have not yet processed.

The Green Sloth is disturbing the Giant Monkey, who is eating bananas in his den. Hearing a naughty laugh, it chases after the laughing monkey and ends up in a meadow where Munch and Lemmy are resting peacefully. Thinking that they are the guilty laughers, the Monkey is about to fly into a rage when, not far away, he hears another familiar laugh...

Munk and Lemmy's life is, as always, full of surprises. This time, their adventures involve an unusually large and equally unusually hard nut. How do you crack the shell to taste the delicious kernel?

The film is a tragic story of a rural woman who, until the first frost in the woods, is trying to pick all the remaining mushrooms. She is running out of time and obsession with the inability to manage it gradually destroys the woman. Imperceptible from beginning, but over time already visible, just like mushrooms, the inability grows and takes over the main character.

The fading beauty of past that is still alive this day

After the fall of the Soviet Union large numbers of immigrants from the East stayed in Latvia for good, Latvians simply call them “Russians”. Over 20 years of independence later mutual suspicion and bias are still there in the most part of the local community. Therefore, a Latvian director involves an independent Russian speaking Norwegian colleague in helping him understand Latvian “Russians” and coming up with an integration plan. But soon enough it becomes clear that only Latvians themselves can manage the challenge. And so begins director’s journey away from the division “us / them”.

The film depicts, with a certain patriotic tone, a traditional-style wedding party of Dravnieku Velta and Varkaļu Jānis.

The story of one of the founders of Latvian hip hop – Gustavo and his endless pursuit of excellence in everything he does. From his first steps in the rap group "Fact" to his long-term work on his solo album "Beidzot!" (Finally!). The road to the top has been full of challenges and at times seemed impossible. It is precisely this perfectionism that drives Gustavo forward, allowing him not only to establish himself among the Latvian rap elite, but also to transcend the boundaries of the genre, constantly searching for new forms of expression. However, this pursuit has not come without sacrifice. Behind his success lie personal sacrifices and internal struggles.

A family lives side by side, connected to screens and disconnected from each other.

A group of boys go on their daily adventures while also facing many dangerous situations.

In a barren wasteland, scavenger Daim discovers a rare and unexpected treasure: a single, vibrant flower.

From the perspective of a forgotten mobile phone, we follow a girl and other nightclub patrons as their night comes alive.

About Esplanade - a square in the centre of Riga. By assembling footage filmed at the Esplanade at different times, the authors give an insight into the historical events in Riga, Latvia.

When Gerda was two, her parents left her in Latvia while they went to work in Ireland. These experiences and memories still haunt Gerda, so she is looking for young people with similar childhood experiences to share, listen and have the courage to talk to their parents about a time that had an irreversible impact on their lives.

Teodors sees a man one day. It soon turns out that this person is connected to him and his actions.

Twins Alba and Livia visit a mirror-themed art exhibit with their eccentric art historian grandfather. There, Alba discovers she can bring paintings to life and accidentally frees Janus, a chaos-bringing god trapped in a mirror of a painting. As Janus warps reality, their grandfather falls under his spell. The girls must journey through art and myth to save him, and the world.

Armands and Žaks are two friends who decide to take a closer look at the state of their country and its capital city, Riga. They are well aware of the glossy promotional videos that showcase Latvia as a land of happy people and a thriving economy. However, their own observations paint a different picture. They see a country that is not well-organized, and where any effort to improve things is quickly stifled. They notice that many of the people in power seem to be more concerned with playing their daily theatrics than actually working towards bettering the country. Armands and Žaks come to the realization that most of their fellow citizens are either forgetful or masochistic, as they repeatedly vote for these politicians who are not working towards any actual change. Despite this, the two remain hopeful that things will get better as they remind themselves that they are living in Europe, after all.

Lemmy is very hungry and looking for a meal, but none of the savannah inhabitants want to share their lunch with him. This is where Lemmy's ingenuity and the antlers he finds help him.

Igarka – a town beyond the Arctic Circle, where Roberts, Andrejs, Nadežda, Anatolijs, and Inta were born in the 1950s. Their parents had been exiled there as children in 1941. Some managed to return to Latvia in 1956, others later. Nadja returned to Latvia with her little daughter only in 1993; her mother remained in the eternal frost. Anatolijs Taurenis did not return; Nadežda went to Igarka and found him. Inta's son went to his grandmother's place of exile because he wants to publish a book. The stories of the children of Igarka are varied. They do not want to talk about their childhood; the memories of their parents and grandparents are painful. They survived, and that is the main thing. Nadja calls her classmates in Russia every day. Others do not speak, some hang up because there is a war going on. Putin and television have convinced them.

On March 11, 2020 the WHO declared the outbreak of Covid-19 as a pandemic. At the time, almost no one predicted that this pandemic would drag on and on, make us sit at 'home', reintroduce curfew or even let us partly forget how it is to hug our loved ones. During this a year, we have more or less adapted to the ‘pandemic lifestyle’. Some have been significantly affected while others have remained almost unchanged. Exactly a year later we look at ourselves - how does this adaptation look? Or - have we adapted at all? This story is told by 624 submitted videos all filmed in a single day - on March 11, 2021. Filmed in Georgia, Finland, France, Switzerland, USA, Russia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Canada, Brazil, Belgium, Iceland, Spain, Vietnam and Malta.

The routine of an online computer game player is disrupted by another player. The main character abandons the rules of game to retain the new friendship.

A visual meditation on the essence of hope. Leaves carried by the wind fall down and rise up. Each one draws its own line as they become part of something bigger. Everything flows, everything changes. Animation artist Zane Oborenko conjures up an intuitively driven and guided phantasmagoric abstraction improvised by musical gestures.

Latvia is one of the poorest EU member states. However, its capital city, Riga, is a modern European metropolis. But less than 100 kilometers from the city center, we find ourselves in a completely different world, in a different time. People go to Riga and abroad in search of work and happiness. What needs to happen so that Latvia does not become a land of only old and incapable people?

An attempt to understand the people chanting "Atlaist Saeimu!" (Sack the parliament!) year after year. Though rarely attracting a great deal of notice, there are always individuals collecting signatures for a referendum to dissolve the parliament for one reason or another, or simply standing outside the building and reciting their familiar mantra. Latvian governments change fairly often, but the parliament has been dissolved in line wth the Constitution only once, in 2010 (in 1934 it was dissolved unconstitutionally following a coup by Prime Minister Kārlis Ulmanis). The actual parliament building in Old Rīga was, however, attacked in January 2009 during a very rare violent protest which precipitated the fall of Ivars Godmanis' cabinet. The documentary zips back and forth in time giving portraits of various different people and political forces pushing the idea to "Atlaist Saeimu" for different reasons.

A story about the fearless Brer Rabbit and the greedy, brazen and boastful Boss Lion who uses the gullibility of the little brothers to rule over their simple lives. Rabbit comes up with a brave plan and a way to defeat the horrible Lion with his resourcefulness. The final film of film studio Dauka.

An artist. A painter. The enfant terrible of the old Soviet and now post-communist 'petit bourgeois' society. A mother of three, no husband, and every child from a different father. The children's ages range from 4 to 20 years. The artist herself is 43 at this time. A happy and free person at all times under any regime. A young, beautiful, photogenic being. Temperamental, garrulous and witty.

It’s not easy to make much sense of the world and grownups’ reasoning if one is only seven years old. This is a story about Justine and the morning of her birthday.

"Rock'n Roll Baltica" Live music from the Baltic countries.

An ironic take on the Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs set in the modern day.

This film is about wondering why the world is the place that it is. Wondering, why beauty often lies in simplicity, or why taking something too seriously might result in the ridiculous, as playing can be at once the most important and serious thing to do.

A person has trapped themself mentally in a place they no longer resonate with. In a dream their subconscious says they have the control to change it, but they still are afraid of letting everything go, and miss the last chance to break out.

Made by Albert Jekste, "My Latvia" is a haunting propaganda film about the illegal Soviet military occupation of three Baltic States in the 1940's

There is a courtyard in Vecumnieki full of dreamy churches and buildings - from it you can always hear the sound of bowls spinning, the wind rustling and the peace. This place is about Juris and what happened to him 30 years ago.

A stand up comedy special of Jānis Kreičmanis.

The newlyweds have settled into a hotel where they will spend their wedding night. The night's pleasures are interrupted by ghosts, and the emergency brigade is called.

Jusis is a young boy who's obsessed with everything to do with samurais. It's his birthday, and the neighborhood kids tell him that somebody's defecated on his trampoline.

Two young women, Lidija and Esmeralda, have become mothers at a tender age. At the moment, they’re at a point where neither their families nor the fathers of their children can help them. They live in a safe house that proves to be a place where they can receive the love, goodwill and peace they could not find before. This visceral film contrasts youthful naivety with hard-to-face facts in a story of longing, hope for love and difficult choices.