Discoveries from Latvia World Cinema

Lens-based video and photography combine with digital geometric shapes to imitate the invisible flow in nature.

Agate – the older and well-off partner of Matiss and the mother of ten-year-old Paula dies unexpectedly. It becomes a devastating blow for Paula and a grand possibility for Matiss, a charming novice bailiff assistant and a cheating boyfriend, to “upgrade” his social status with Agates splendid house. Matiss and Paula are stuck together in order to find the only relative left – the missing brother of Agate. This journey leaves irreversible footprints on both of them.

Vyacheslavs Kashcheyevs is a man who feels the world with each single one of his atoms and breaks the stereotype about physics as a dry and impersonal field of science. In parallel to splitting electrons in the laboratory, he seeks a connection to the Almighty, and is a dreamer, an exceptional scientist, family man and educator, socially active and civically minded. What allows him, unlike most of us, to be so harmonious and seemingly omniscient? Together with quantum physicist, theological authority and Latvian patriot Vyacheslav Kashcheyev, the film searches for the code to modern-day life.

In a house soon to be demolished lives a little girl. When her mother dies, she is forced to look for shelter at the side of a man, the only one still left in the house. He is a strange, somber man with his only companions being two endlessly trustworthy dogs - Monk and Prince.

A young woman, Regina, has been killed in her apartment. Investigator Anderson holds Regina’s husband as a suspect for a murder because he is unable to remember his location at the time of the fateful event. Gradually, Anderson is convinced that Oto has not only killed his wife, but he also tries to hide his true identity – notorious criminal Schmit.

A tribute to late Latvian documentary film director Juris Podnieks. It was his plan to make this film about Latvia and Russia after the collapse of the USSR.

When the daughter of the Sun and the Moon is stolen, desperate parents call people to get their baby back. Helpers are given only three days: if at that time, the Sun's daughter will not be found, she will lose her strength and become an ordinary girl. A journey of danger and adventure, which teaches everyone not only to be brave and resourceful, but also helpful. The Latvian animated film is based on folklore motifs.

A young married housewife's dull routine is enlivened as she spies on the sexual escapades of her fencing instructor neighbour. She too is seduced by him, but the fear of losing her family results in hysteria and an unpredictable climax.

A little daring Mosquito does not know how to make friends. He is often intrusive and stinging. Everything changes when he gets into trouble. He understands his wrongdoings and starts to see good in others.

A short student film reflecting on the reality of living in the modern urban dystopia

In 1873, brave men known as the New Latvians held the first-ever Latvian song festival under the watchful eye of oppressive censorship. This massive celebration, featuring 1,003 singers – both men and women – changed the course of the nation’s history. It stands as a unique example of non-violent resistance in the fight for freedom against imperialism, led by Latvia’s entrepreneurs, writers, publicists and ordinary villagers.

A young man recalls different moments of his life, reflecting the preservation of memory, the enigma of time and the inevitability of death

A man arrives to a flat to start living there, only to discover a young woman with a child already present in the flat.

A teenage boy and his uncle compete for the love of a prostitute.

After recovering from an overseas mission, Krists Lapins moves into a quiet neighbourhood in Riga. His hopes for a new, peaceful life are disrupted when an unexpected visitor arrives one night. Krists soon finds himself in a swirl of events involving a mysterious blonde, a wannabe private detective, a bankrupt millionaire, and a rigorous cop. In this witty portrayal of modern Latvian society the absurd meets the comic and nothing is what it seems.

The intimacy of passing by. Heading home, to work, to see a friend, to buy dinner, or perhaps to the cinema. As the seasons change, we encounter fellow passengers along the way. They commute, sit, wait, get bored, maybe sometimes stare at their small screens more than through the windows – but they always reach their destination. Alongside them are kiosk vendors, vegetable and flower sellers, janitors, and drivers, whose daily routines complement the journeys of the travellers. Public transport stops become intimate crossroads, offering us an unexpected, moving visual symphony of Riga neighbourhoods.

Pigtail loves the winter holidays, but this year, shortly before Christmas, Brother comes into the world, turning everything upside down. Grandmother arrives from the countryside, because Pigtail’s parents no longer have time to take her skating, but Pigtail and her best friend, Mr. Sleeplessness, don’t like the new order. They come up with a plan – to send Brother and Grandmother to the Moon, in a bid to reclaim parental attention.

In the 1980s, when Latvians living abroad had the opportunity to visit their homeland, she came to Riga to meet her childhood sweetheart, Alfred. They arrange to meet at their usual spot over the phone. Alfrēds waits with white roses, but when she sees a pre-war car whose driver has gone to return some bottles, she gets in to reminisce and drive around Riga.

In this short film directed in the style of Andrei Tarkovsky, eternity and the downfall of the Soviet empire are explored in a deeply symbolic and poetic way. The film follows a protagonist as they traverse a desolate landscape, reflecting on the transient nature of life and the inevitability of death. Through a series of dreamlike sequences, the audience is presented with a powerful meditation on the idea of eternity, and how it can be seen in the rise and fall of empires. The film culminates in a powerful scene of the protagonist standing atop a hill, looking out at the ruins of the Soviet empire, and contemplating the eternal cycle of life and death.

A story about a little piglet who prefers sweet, lazy sleep over engaging in any housework. He gets offended when his friends ask for help. Chatty magpie tells the little piglet of rich and generous relatives in the forest. Piglet believes the magpie and goes into the forest for the promised better life. But the dream turns into illusion and Piglet’s trip turns into a dangerous affair.

A moving biographical story about two-time Paralympic champion Rihards Snikus. The film traces his journey to the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris and highlights significant turning points in the athlete's life.

Elvis is missing, and five of his classmates decide to go looking for him. While in hot pursuit of his tracks, the children are caught up in a whirl of exciting adventures, encountering all sorts of people and unusual situations.

Edmunds Berzs is an architect who has achieved a comfortable life, but this causes him unease, so he decides to go to the country house where his mother lives. There he wakes up to find himself locked in a cage in the middle of the forest. Edmunds, paradoxically, finds the tranquility he was looking for.

A bureaucrat who has just declared himself as a new political force has disappeared… in a canteen; police are investigating. Combining the absurd and black humour, a harsh and ironic reflection on civil servants, cops, and contemporary art.

A condom found on an African beach is an impulse for a black man to set off on a dangerous sea journey to Europe, in search of a better life. Meanwhile, Villa Antropoff hosts a typical international wedding party which, with every drink and every drug fix, is becoming increasingly pretentious. An ironic story about dreams and losing dreams. Inspired by a real event, when both directors found themselves at a strange wedding celebration in the villa of former USSR leader Yuri Andropov near Pärnu in Estonia.

The year 2011 marked the 70th anniversary of the deportations of June 14 1941, when 15 425 residents of Latvia (Latvians, Jews, Russians, Poles) were deported to Siberia. Among them there were 3 751 children aged up to 16. During the process men were separated from their families and sent to gulags, where many were sentenced to death, while others were imprisoned in labour camps. The facts of history and dry and few, but many of the victims and their children and grandchildren are still among us. During the summer of 2010, people who were deported to Siberia in 1941 as children joined their own children and a video production crew to travel back to the far North of Russia.

Beatrise is drifting in life. She has based her existence on unsuccessful relationships that have collapsed, like sand castles, one after the other. Forced to re-evaluate things, she realizes that she can only achieve harmony by learning to rely on herself, and not on illusory feelings or words.

It’s discovered by chance that legendary Finnish film director Teuvo Tulio came from a remote village in Latvia near the Russian border. During his childhood he was known by the Russian nickname, Fedya. The local authorities immediately place a memorial stone in his honour, but the local peasants are confused and even angry about the unwanted publicity and guests. They have neither heard of Teuvo Tulio, nor seen his films...

For the post-war generation in Latvia, the dream of the “good old days” became a significant part of the process of regaining independence. The dream of restoring the countryside to the way it was during the first independence is only now seen by most as naïve and unreal. Six episodes that reflect the historical development in the nation parallel to the fate of the director’s mother are used to explore the effects of political order on everyday lives. Though she is now leaving the countryside, the process of moving her life provides a visual stimulus for memories.

Self-made banker Boriss Osipovs achieves quick success immediately after the collapse of the USSR, but he flees Latvia to avoid arrest for illegal operations. Fifteen years later, his family receives a photograph from Interpol of an elderly gentleman with the same name who resides in a Malaysian mental asylum. Could it be him? Despite the reservations of her family, Osipovs’ daughter, documentary director Ieva Ozoliņa, starts an investigation to find out the truth about the man in the photograph. An emotional story about a man who loses himself in times of change...and the daughter who hopes to find him.

About how Gūtenmorgens, unwilling to celebrate Jāņi, defends Latvian traditions and finds a fern flower. Gūtenmorgens tries to dampen his friends' enthusiasm for celebrating Jāņi, until Bērziņš finds him a foreign journalist to be his partner for the celebration. Becoming a defender of Latvian traditions against the foreigner's desire for entertainment, Gūtenmorgens discovers the mystery of Jāņi and meets his future wife.

The most daring director in interwar Latvia, Vilis Lapenieks, who around the same time began work on the box office hit Zvejnieka dēls (The Fisherman's Son, 1939), has attempted to highlight the singing festivals held in Latvia to date with national romantic enthusiasm in this compilation of archive material financed by the Ministry of Public Affairs, which is why the film's subtitle is "From the 1st to the 9th Song Festival." In a movingly patriotic staging and expressive performance by an actor in makeup, the film begins by presenting the most important points from Kronvaldu Ata's speech at the first All-Latvian Song Festival. The main focus is on the IX Latvian Song Festival, which took place in Riga, at Victory Square, on June 18-19, 1938, "under the patronage of President Dr. K. Ulmanis." The film includes an excerpt from Kārlis Ulmanis' speech.

The time for the annual great graveyard celebration is approaching in a small town. Scientist Laila can’t attend it alone this year. She has to make a choice.

Feith and Dallas, a married couple, are struck with news on their son’s sudden death. They are going to the morgue to recognise his remains. Meanwhile on the same road 17 years ago they find out that they might become parents. In a lonely gas tank they stop to meet themselves from 17 years ago and have no choice, they must confront their past and future.

There is no end to transformations. Different living beings arise from each other, pass into each other as in an endless string of surprises and fun.

A desperate hunger strike meant to capture global media attention slowly unravels into a hilariously bleak showdown between ambition, reality, and an empty stomach.

“Hike '44" is a personal story by director Lauris Abele and cinematographer Marcis Abele about how to maintain humanity when the world falls apart. The protagonist of the film, Melita Abele (89), retraces her refugee path from 1944, when, at the age of 14, she had to leave her home at the beginning of winter. Asking strangers for shelter, spend nights in the woods until she found refuge and warm hearts. Through the use of animation, the viewer will be guided through Melita's memories on a journey through recent and present-day Latvia until a series of events brings Melita to what she has been trying to accomplish for 75 years.

Lords of Riga allows to see an insight into a passionate subculture of bike couriers. Weaving their way through the urban traffic, they have become silent and sometimes unnoticed witnesses of everyday life in Riga as well as examples of our modern-day society. What is freedom to this bunch of rebellious messengers and where it ends?

Father to be, Pavel, with his pregnant girlfriend, Sabine, spend their days living like nomads and breaking in houses in search for food and resources. Their travels bring them to an old manor in the middle of a forest, which is run by the Dragoon siblings. When they can't find the way out of the grotesque forest, they end up back in the Dragoon's manor just in time for Sabine to go in labor.

While the parent bears are gathering reserves for the winter, the cubs are having fun with a ball of wool … A story told to the tune of a Latvian lullaby, “Hush Hush Little Bear” (‘Aijā, žūžū, lāča bērni’).

The personal story of a woman struggling with an inherited illness, as told by Signe Baumane, the Latvian director-animator living in New York City. With humour and courage, the director sets out on a challenging journey to discover her family’s best-kept secret. Featuring five stories about the courageous women in Signe’s family and their battles with madness, visual metaphors, surreal images and director’s narration.

Donats is a modern-day Don Juan juggling the various women in his life seemingly without any consequences, until he falls in love with Agnese. Her husband, Ralfs, turns out to be a formidable opponent.

Brothers Robert and Martin are a month away from their largest art exhibition. To get creative juices flowing, Martin locks himself in a black cube. Once out, brothers fall into a wild rollercoaster of events existing on the very edge of the chaos, examining the thin line between the artist’s creativity and mental troubles.

A family drama circling around a love triangle - a mother, a daughter and a son-in-law. The plot is focusing on the mother's psychological manipulation with the son to "make a man" of him.

“As death, when we come to consider it closely, is the true goal of our existence, I have formed during the last few years such close relationships with this best and truest friend of mankind that death's image is not only no longer terrifying to me, but is indeed very soothing and consoling” - thus said Mozart about death. Mozart died in 1791 and was buried in a mass grave, as standard at the time in Vienna for a person of his social and financial situation. In 2000, 452 of Riga’s deceased — people without relatives, the homeless and the unidentified — were buried at the Jaunciems cemetery. But this film is not about death: it's about Mozart, The Magic Flute, Riga, and love. A short commissioned for the Latvian exhibition at Venice Biennale.

13 stories about love set in the capital of Latvia.

Elīna returns to the summer house of her childhood to show it to buyers. The visceral presence of her dead grandmother forces her to reflect on the legacy of failing familial relations – and how she and her mother are approaching a similar fate.

Three elderly ladies - Maiga, Velta and Mrs.Tone - meet every Tuesday at a Culture House in a suburb of Riga to take part in rehearsals with 40-odd other ladies of the "Granny Choir". Some of them might be living more in the past than in the present, but there is one extraordinary feature common to all. Despite their age, low income and health issues, they appear to know how to grow old with dignity, a sense of humour and, as it seems, even joy.

Two sisters have their last conversation before one of them leaves the family home.

A business executive lays off hundreds of harbor workers after they go on strike. He and his wife plan to escape the stress by taking an Italian vacation. On the evening before the trip, one of the fired workers, dressed in an orange harbor worker safety jacket, slips into their home. Although his immediate actions reveal a murderous intent, revenge is only the initial step.

In this allegory about paradise lost, Ildze yearns to find peace and fulfilment by moving from the city to the countryside. However, her thoughts are consumed by the illness of her child, her estrangement from her husband and his absence. In the meantime, Ildze’s grief is enveloped by nature’s promise of comfort, which never arrives. She tries to understand where to find the beginning of the cycle of sacrifice and where to find its end. And who is her victim, or is it herself?

Circumstances force two former friends and schoolmates to meet again after a long separation. There’s an unresolved conflict from their past. Will this chance meeting result in reconciliation?

A gripping journey into the world of Latvian rock legend Juris Kulakovs. The film follows a young filmmaker as she uncovers the essence of the enigmatic musician through his tumultuous life, music, and eccentric flat. Delve into the Soviet-era struggles and post-independence triumphs through candid conversations with both Kulakovs and those closest to him. An exploration of art, passion, and perseverance in the face of adversity.

An unfinished short student film about dreaming

The 20th century dreamt of utopia but instead experienced tragedies. This film looks at San Francisco-based Latvian artist and playwright Raimonds Staprāns’ nearly century-long experience of trying to define life and statehood. It constructs an exact replica of one of his paintings, and asks actors to portray characters from his plays. Keeping in mind the symbolically charged image of the red barn in the painting, it deliberately incites arguments between the actors, the director and the crew about the motivations of the characters as well as alternative actions or decisions that they could have taken but did not.

The film tells a story about the latest musical revolution in recent history – the early days of the rave scene and the golden age of techno culture. International political changes in the mid-80s and early 90s, including the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, in a short period of time allowed this cultural phenomenon to become a mass movement which was almost completely independent from the global corporations and which did not fight with the system but created its own system.

A young person questions their life and purpose, speaking to themselves in an attempt to find meaning in a meaningless world.