Toms Šķēle

Standing near the reptile section in a zoo for 26 minutes we can learn a lot about the animals on both sides of the separating glass.

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.

Spring 2021. A cinephile invites you on an intimate trip through the last surviving cinema houses in Latvia. This documentary essay, shot on super 8mm, opens the locked doors to picture houses during a Covid-19 lockdown, perhaps the most difficult time in the history of physical cinema space.

Fighting as a partisan in the mythical Baltic past and in wars in 20th century Eastern Europe at the same time, Baņuta’s life is saved by weary and disenchanted Lithuanian prince, Daumants. Speeding away on a motorcycle, he brings the fighter back to his homeland in Romove, a holy Baltic site. There is about to be a wedding, but the preparations are interrupted by ravens. Their black feathers are a mirror for Daumants’ conscience and act as a reminder of his crime against Jargala, a girl he raped and killed. Soon Daumants falls in battle, and being a stranger in Romove, Baņuta is caught up in sacrificial rituals and revenge. However, she is strong-willed and will not bow to fate – no one will take her happiness away. A hundred years after the premiere of Alfrēds Kalniņš’ first Latvian opera Baņuta in 1920, comes the opera film Baņuta – an international project that melds opera, musical performances, the conditionality of the performing arts and contemporary performativity.

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.

Suffering from insomnia, Arta develops a hobby of collecting pictures of other people sleeping. One night the girl accidentally locks herself out of the house and is forced to spend the night in the streets, dressed in pyjamas.

The family from the 4th floor are reasonably sane people. Krists is a brash teenager who lives in his dreams more than in real world and has a keen interest in the neighbor girl Unda. Ineta, Krist's mother, is a moderately hysteical being, a primary school teacher who devotes all her awake hours to obsessively watching shows on TV. The tranquil balance of this family is disrupted one night when it turns out Krist's world of sleepwalking has began to endanger the life in awake.

The family from the 4th floor are reasonably sane people. Krists is a brash teenager who lives in his dreams more than in real world and has a keen interest in the neighbor girl Unda. Ineta, Krist's mother, is a moderately hysteical being, a primary school teacher who devotes all her awake hours to obsessively watching shows on TV. The tranquil balance of this family is disrupted one night when it turns out Krist's world of sleepwalking has began to endanger the life in awake.

After his wife kicks him out of the house, an elderly, anti-social and quite conservative man Arvīds decides to reconnect with his grandson by staying with the boy and his mother. Not keen on their lifestyle, the old man tries hard to accept all the eccentricities of the young and liberal. Fortunately for him, a warm-hearted friend of Arvīds’ ex-daughter-in-law is always around to help and he seems to be a natural when it comes to children and other stubborn people. When Arvīds finds out that the young man is gay, he decides he has had enough. Often, life is not that much about finding your place, as about learning how to share that place with others. This short film is a light and playful experience, looking into the definition of “normal” that varies so strongly from generation to generation.

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.

Satama” is an observative short documentary film about the demolishion of a squat called ”Satama Social Center”, which has been a safe haven, a shelter, for youngsters fighting against commerciality, individualism and capitalism in Helsinki, Finland. The film depicts the activist community's and its particpants' arranged events during the final months of the squat, before the inevitable triumph of the capitalistic values prevail.

Satama” is an observative short documentary film about the demolishion of a squat called ”Satama Social Center”, which has been a safe haven, a shelter, for youngsters fighting against commerciality, individualism and capitalism in Helsinki, Finland. The film depicts the activist community's and its particpants' arranged events during the final months of the squat, before the inevitable triumph of the capitalistic values prevail.