Discoveries from Latvia World Cinema

In a greyish office building workers turn to ritualistic actions to overcome ever-increasing challenges.

In 2014, Shakhta, Dancer, and Potter volunteered for the army in order to fight in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict in eastern Ukraine. Although the horrible things they experienced during two years on the front accompany them for every second of their existence, they try to return to civilian life. But the Russian invasion in 2022 forces them to again confront the war.

It's 2009 and two brothers, Laimonis and Ojārs, unexpectedly become participants in a strange TV game in the hope of winning a new car. Their mission? To be able to keep their hands on the coveted car longer than the other competitors. The rivalry, which started out as a playful spat, gradually becomes more and more fierce.

A portrait of prominent opera singer - bass-baritone Egils Silins. For 4 years, the crew followed the singer through the greatest European opera houses. The film reveals behind the scenes and perfor-mances of Richard Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman, Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca at the Latvian National Opera, Wagner’s The Valkyrie at the Zurich Opera, Georges Bizet’s Carmen at the Vienna Opera, and Wagner’s Parsifal at the Munich Opera.

A little boy dreams of becoming a professional hockey player. Unfortunately, one day he is forced to give up on his passion. His love for sports is revived after several decades when he has his own son. While shopping for a Christmas gift for the boy, the man’s childhood memories return; the main player in them is his constantly drunk father.

Intended for foreign viewers, the film explores Latvia’s history and present day, national traditions, culture, and nature, with the filmmakers traveling in a horse-drawn carriage.

Ieva has been an obedient granddaughter for years – choosing a safe career in a bank as her grandmother wanted. Her mother left the family years ago when she had to look for work abroad. That has made ties between Ieva and her grandmother especially tight. Dissatisfaction with the constant adaption to the material world is flickering under the surface and Ieva lives her dreamlife with her friends. She plays the keyboard in a girl band and stays out late. When Ieva decides to have a provocative tattoo on her arm made, her grandmother goes completely nuts.

Blueberry Spirits is a poetic documentary about a Roma family that spends its summers in the Latvian forests, picking berries to make a living. While harvesting the fruits of the forest, they reflect on their identity as a group by sharing ghost stories.

We literally found our film next to a dumpster. It was a bag containing 36 rolls of photographic negatives exposed between the 1960s and 1980s by an unknown photographer. We named him Anton, Aunt Emma's son. Looking through our contact sheets, with their many inaccuracies—blurred edges, random elements in the frame, haze, accidents, and double exposures—we tried to imagine what our lives would be like if these were our photos.

Over the years, eighty-year-old Irina Pilke, nicknamed the Little Bird, has depicted the events of her life as sketches in diaries. The pages reveal the experiences of World War II, love and separation, and a subtly ironic view on the events in the Soviet Union and among its society. The Little Bird looks at the world from the viewpoint of a small creature rather than from a perspective of power and politics which may be the reason her life story seems so incredibly heartwarming, familiar, and true to the tiniest detail.

On the first day of school, little musician Sienāzītis, disobedient Bombardētājvabolis, and Mēslu vaboles mazulis set off to learn about the world of insects under the guidance of teacher Skudra. However, it is much more interesting to explore a world full of dangers and surprises on your own, while also getting to know your friends, than to sit at a school desk.

A documentary about the well-known Latvian youth choir “Kamēr...” and its journey to the Tolosa Choral competition. A debut from a 20 year old singer of the choir, the film offers a deeply personal insight into the most difficult challenge the choir has ever faced. After the head conductor leaving, the choir has just 2 months to get used to a new leader. A test for the new conductor who has to prove his worth at one of the most important competi-tions of the choir’s history. It’s do or die, as nothing less than a victory will be accepted. Following the choir every step of the way, the director puts the audience in a first-row seat at rehearsals, performances, discussions and spectacular moments that can only be seen through the eyes of a singer. An unprecedented view of the personal battles and achieve-ments, that lead up to a real-life story, never captured before.

Sometimes even those who are used to crawling, get to fly.

A widowed Latvian father's quest for a much-loved Dutch pen pal, whom he hasn't heard from in three decades, provides the basis of this comedy-drama. The father is accompanied by his traumatized and mute eight-year-old son whom he had to kidnap from a Riga hospital. Together, the two flee towards Holland where the father Yuris hopes to find his long-lost friend Marie, whom he remembers as a great beauty. During the long journey, father and son have several funny adventures, many of which occur because neither father nor son speak much Dutch. They finally arrive at Marie's door empty-handed. What they find, gives them little hope, for the lithe young idealist of Yuris' dreams has become middle-aged and cynical.

Summer adventure story about two kids who spend summer in city suburb, where together with talking dogs they rescue the romantic wooden-house neighborhood from reconstruction.

Architecture student Paulius is faced with a moral choice, after discovering his beloved professor is one of the creatures wanted by police and hunted by Paulius’ vigilante friends.

During the Soviet times, the Aviation Institute in Riga was where our fathers came to study. When the Soviet Union collapsed, they became the first black inhabitants of Latvia. We are their children - the first generation of dark-skinned Latvians. We are trying to figure out how our lives differ from those of our fathers, and what distinguishes or unites us with the rest of the Latvian society. What does it mean - to be different, and how does it affect our lives?

The story of a film "Commission" starts in Georgia at some unknown point of time where a heroic, mythical female character has written a book which is being delivered by a courier (the artist herself) to three powerful women. The content of a book is hidden within an existing book – "The Knight in the Panther's Skin" written by Medieval Georgian poet Shota Rustaveli who dedicated the book to 12th century Queen Tamar who at the time brought prosperity and many social changes in the country. Being used as a secret shell or a reference to female power from the past, the freshly embedded content of a book serves as manifesto to the women who haven’t been equally appreciated due to history books still being written from male perspective. The book offers alternative gaze to a world history which can exist only in utopian science-fiction film commissioned and executed by females only.

Latvia. The end of the 19th century. In a corner of a parish on the shore of a lake, two families live side by side. The Dievlodziņi and the Vilkači. With a long-standing hatred in their relations. True, the manifestations of hatred are felt only in the Dievlodziņi homes. How could it not! They are increasingly unlucky, diseases and livestock diseases strike, and the crops do not yield. In contrast, in the Vilkači, everything grows in a whirlwind, and diseases also continue to take a detour. This leads us to think that the Vilkači family achieves its prosperity by pestering and practicing witchcraft. Over time, they have also managed to turn the other people of the parish against them. However, the essence is completely different. The Vilkači people, being Christians, have not forgotten the ancient traditions and customs of the Latvian people, which are rooted in human life, not separating themselves from nature.

An experimental animated short film that explores the relationship between humans and nature. Shot in December 2023 to support the ongoing battle to ban whaling in Iceland, the film takes viewers to spontaneous locations around Reykjavik and poses the question: can humanity find a more harmonious rhythm with nature?

Composers are regular people – they drive public transport, do sports, pay their bills. And still – they are very different as they are able to comprehend sound. The documentary film Sounds Under the Sun is an inspiring cinematic journey all over the world to meet some of the world-famous contemporary classical music composers. Visiting Alaskan forests, skyscrapers in Tokyo, and war zone in Georgia, the film gives a glimpse of how the composers share their struggle to create music from the moment of sonic creation till the moment when their music is interpreted for public (the film features composers Sir John Tavener from the UK, Leonid Desyatnikov from Russia, Giya Kancheli from Georgia, Dobrinka Tabakova from Bulgaria, John Luther Adams from the USA, and Ko Matsushita from Japan, and one of the world’s best youth choirs, Kamēr..., from Latvia).

When a chicken is kidnapped by two thieves, a lively adventure full of humor and with a surprising twist begin.

After losing his leg, ex-cop Didzis focuses on training his three beloved police dogs. His estranged wife Jana, a doctor at the local sports school, seeks romantic fulfilment with Roberts, a 17-year-old student and a promising swimmer. After a secret randez-vous, Jana hits a rabid wild boar with her car and eventually spreads the virus to Didzis’ dogs. The accident ignites dark suspicion and jealousy in Didzis. Busy with finding and punishing Jana’s secret lover, Didzis overlooks the ever-growing strangeness and aggression in his now infected dogs. Just as the love triangle becomes toxic, the dogs escape and threaten the local town. Facing both personal and professional fiasco, Didzis decides to take matter in his own hands.

The creative documentary Piano Player is a story about the piano player and musician Oscar Strock, who was a well known tango music composer in 1920s Europe. Nobody knew him – only his music was well known. The life of Strock is like a side-show of everlasting debts, long voyages and wild and unlucky love affairs that find their best interpretation through his tango music. The piano player is a man, who barely arranges his life according to the political and economic circumstances in the world. To earn money, he plays for pubs and cinema theatres in Riga, Berlin and Paris, and for lovers, he writes the most romantic tango music.

An elderly Japanese man visits a strange island, where he disappears in his own memories.

Since the 1950s nuclear weapon tests, every inhabitant of the planet carries a portion of the radioactive isotope carbon-14 within them. This is just one of many testimonies of how military processes leave their mark everywhere, not just where they can be seen by satellites. In this film, war is viewed not merely as a state of armed conflict, but rather as a broad set of actions, symbols, and phenomena whose impact extends across time and space, affecting even the most mundane parts of our lives. The film is the author's attempt to reflect on various forms of violence and the impacts of the soft power of imperialism through an associative journey across memories and modern-day Riga.

Each one of us is like a comet - a piece of something big and beautiful, like a ball in motion! But in the life of a comet there are two great dares - the dare to separate from the rest of the mass and the dare to venture into the unknown. It is only through movement and ignorance that the comet is free.

A problem that every film director has faced – how do you film something that does not exist? A director is making a documentary about an actor and his stalker – but the stalker never appears. As the deadline approaches, unusual steps must be taken.

Inta Ruka is more of a co-author of the film in terms of the message about the people she photographs, their lives and destinies, and the unique, interesting people she encounters by chance. Since she has known most of these people for years, the topics of conversation come naturally. Inta Ruka's portraits are an attempt to reveal people in the world and the world in people.

The documentary “Residents” probes problems in Latvia in general and Latvia’s medicine in particular with the story of two energetic young interns, Kārlis and Laura.

A coming of age story about a group of millennials who start to face their self-destructive tendencies as they each head straight into their crisis of thirtysomethings.

A love letter to grannies. Aina is an 88-year old retiree. Yes, health issues lay at the core of her life, but her view on life, however, is full of understanding, ease and humour. Five different phrases used by her daily reflect her personality and constitute the structure of the film.

The story of three different cultures meeting together in the realm of ethno-jazz music. Georgian ethno-jazz trio The Shin, the Moldavian band Trigon, Owl’s Ethnographic Orchestra and Intars Busulis. Their breath-taking journey into the souls of Georgian, Latvian and Moldavian folk music, their creation of contemporary music akin to cutting shiny new gemstones from rough old folklore treasures, opening hearts and removing borders between nations and languages. In their travels they become brothers and sisters in music. The scenery and melodies, voices and rhythms on the road they take may change. Yet in the end it turns out to be the way home for them all. The Way Home.

Vārdotājas (Wordsmiths) traces the recent rise of women's stand-up comedy in Latvia, but it is by no means just for laughs. Feelings of discomfort, shame, shock, are just some of the subjects tackled.

The story of young lives in the young offenders unit in Cēsis, Latvia. A place governed by its own codes and order, where unwritten rules are more powerful than the written word. In the making of the film, the production team witnessed a gamut of attitudes and emotions. Much can be understood from the youths’ gestures, facial expressions and from their actions. Secretive and uncommunicative, they are victims, yet perpetrators of crime. But, also still children.

A wedding goes awry when the venue catches fire and the bride is dragged into the underworld. Only a kokle player is brave enough – and musical enough – to venture there and save her. With its mummers, imps, three-headed demon king and singing mole cricket, I Played, I Danced is a story like none other. Composed in 1977, Imants Kalniņš’s elaborate musical language is blended with Latvian folk to create a unique and moving soundworld. Leading young Latvian director Laura Groza-Ķibere and visual artist Miķelis Fišers bring out the wild energy of this opera in their new production that forces us to ask: How much should we fight the demons of the past while striving for a better future?

A tragicomic tale about the relationship of Guna and the twice older writer Gints. Guna has lost her job, but Gints hasn’t written anything in years. Whilst running away from an unsatisfactory relationship and the lack of creative self-expression, Guna gets obsessed with the theatre performance “Odyssey” by the famous director Viestur Kairish and begins to mix reality with theatre. Guna tries to start a new life, but her fantasy world doesn’t allow her to be a part of reality anymore.

Little Anna is waiting for her first Christmas.

In the middle of a grey sea there is a grey isle. On this grey island grey hunters live. The life is simple and harsh. Seals and hunters live together in a cruel balance. One day, the Photographer arrives to document this everyday life. For him it turns out to be deadly complicated. The film is an absurd comedy about the unstoppable desire to see the surrounding through one's preconceptions.

Mūziks is a small, scruffy dog who accidentally meets a little girl named Bubesīte. They want to see the mysterious lake spirit Ragainīte. The unexpected meeting between Mūziks, Bubesīte, and Ragainīts proves that dreams do come true, and that the experiences and emotions of a single night conceal and reveal the beauty, eternity, and changeability of nature.

Strange things are happening in the Tiger’s garden. Someone has stolen his carrots and some of the carrots are growing ”up and down”.

Two young men come to visit their friend, who, after an unsuccessful suicide attempt, spends his daily life in a remote country house. Spending a seemingly peaceful day together, the two young friends leave their friend with the hope that he will recover soon.

After a plane crash, a young man and his dog, who are stranded on an deserted island, must bond together in order to survive the elements.

A short poetic documentary film fashioned in the vein of Riga's poetic documentary films from the 20th century. The film delves into the relationship between humans and bells, exploring the role of a bell ringer as a profession in decline and the significance of bells in our lives today.

Latvian children born in Ireland are a part of the nation that dreams in English, and marks a peculiar page of recent Latvian history. Although cannot be distinguished in Ireland from English speakers, they are "on you" in Latvian.

Latvian artist Miķelis Fišers, one of the brightest artists of his generation, leaves everything to go to Latin America to find inspiration for his creative work and disappears. His friend, film director Mārtiņš Grauds decides to search for him. The film reveals a moment of artistic creation. The filming crew has been looking for the artist in Peru, Mexico, Bolivia, Finland, Italy and Latvia.

On the islet of Procida near Naples, Italy, the Mystery Procession commencing at dawn on Good Friday of each year, has been traditionally conducted by the “Turchini Fraternity” since 1627... The film captures portraits of Procida’s inhabitants during the procession and in effect reveals characteristics of the Italian people.

There is a huge uproar in the forest: Beaver’s teeth have been stolen. Detective Owl and his assistant Piglet are to investigate this mysterious crime. Several forest inhabitants appear to be possible suspects, but the guilty one is not so easily discovered.

Four directors capture simple, yet quintessential experiences of a single individual in different periods of his life - childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age.

A feature-length adventure story about making difficult decisions, moving forward and starting over.

A man escapes from prison and meets a boy who has run away from school.

Harry Berzins is abducted by aliens. Traumatic experience gained is on a foreign planet, where the gray race rules and makes Berzins feel excluded. The only creature he believes is the odd Ufologist Vilma Kavace. While Vilma uses Berzins as an alien attraction bait, his mother, impregnated with a Latvian sperm on another planet, carries his child. Shieet.

A reindeer herdsman’s life is as gently monotonous as the tundra itself. It flows in synchrony with the life of the reindeer herd from one migration to the next. The time between these two points belongs entirely to the herdsman. It’s áigi - the herdsman’s time.

Documentary about the Norwegian united Latvian choir "Laipa".

The European championship football madness, drunken "experts" at the provincial stadium, the backstage of National team, raving fans at the streets of Paris and Lisbon. Football is a sport and entertainment through possibly there is more to the game. In the film "Working Class Ballet" philosophers, linguists, neuropsychologist and football coach are contemplating on the parallels between football and drama of life, forming an unusual tale on what football is or could be.

In the mill between two superpowers – Russian and German – they were just a pebble. Unexpectedly – a tough pebble to crush… The film is a neutral view on the still controversial historical phenomenon of the Latvian legion within the German army during the World War II.

Five characters meet in a hotel where the special air of the surroundings allows people to meet themselves. A successful businessman and his wife, a young guy and his girlfriend, and a lonely woman who are looking for the right solution in their lives.

On this date, more than 42,129 people were deported from Latvia to Siberia. In great secrecy, 31 trains with cattle cars were sent out in a single day. The deportations of 1949 were, in a sense, even more cruel than those of 1941, as one in four of those deported for life was a child, and one in six was over 60 years old. The film "The Distant Land of Siberia. Why March 25, 1949?" will tell about the reasons for the deportations and show the places of exile in Siberia. People who were deported as children will share their memories.