Normunds Deinats

An immersion into the intimacy of Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the USSR. The architect of perestroika and glasnost, who was praised in the West but reviled in his own country, still combative despite his advanced age, loneliness and illness, offers his personal and political testament.

A film about "Dziesmusvētki" - the Latvian national singing festival tradition.

The Mole's life is tricky - a battle among humans is happening right above his head, and also his neighbor the Bull does not like the Mole very much. But all will end well!

In the early 1920s, soon after the Latvian republic was established, about 2000 Baptists immigrated to Brazil to await the end of the world. It did not come, and Latvians created an island of Christianity in the middle of a rainforest. The Latvian language is still spoken in the Vārpa settlement, but the younger generations have left the area.

When the last of her friends has been buried, an elderly lady is on her way home from the graveyard. Her own memories play out in front of her eyes all over the city. At the local coffin store, she has to face a choice – a coffin or an old sledge. She says her goodbyes and takes off towards the nearby forest. It isn’t easy to make death charming and almost jovial, but director Rene Turtledove accomplishes it in this animation short about an elderly woman who has buried one too many friends and decides there are better ways to spend her money and her time than on the local coffin shop.

A lazy little bunny is awaken by a sudden hustle and bustle one spring morning. Going to the henhouse for eggs turns into a dangerous adventure. In order to save Easter, the little bunny has to overcome both - his laziness and fear, and to believe in the miraculous presence of the sun bunny.

The film portrays the political situation in occupied Latvia 37 years ago, when writer Imants Ziedonis formed a group of like-minded peers into ‘’Dižkoku atbrīvotāji’’ – DAGi. Film reels and photos of the time show Imants Ziedonis and the DAGi participants – Māra Zālīte, Anna Žīgure, Roze Stiebra, Andris Buiķis, Vitolds Kucins and others. Today, with their contemporary experiences, they reflect on a time when the dream of an independent Latvia seemed impossibly far away. We’re Still Here reminds the younger generations that it’s possible to do good in the name your nation and its future not matter the circumstances.

In January 2011, Latvia commemorated the 20th anniversary of the tragic events that occurred in January 1991. Film producer Andris Slapiņš was killed, and cameraman Gvido Zvaigzne was fatally injured on the night of January 20th and died in hospital two weeks later. He was a young man whose talent had not yet fully flourished. His story, however, contains elements that make it not only possible to demonstrate his personal tragedy, but also the problematic existence of a young and creative person during an era when everything was crumbling around him. Destiny kept Gvido Zvaigzne from finishing his route, but the events and values of his life represent a model of his generation’s efforts.

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.

Latvians have left their land for all corners of the earth over the last centuries – either driven out for disobeying the powers at large, or due to wars and revolutions, or with visions of a better life. And not always to an easier life. But there was only one place where an anti-Latvian campaign was waged, where every Latvian was treated as a spy, a traitor, and the enemy, and therefore deserved to be tortured and shot. This was during the 1937 repression in Russia, where the horror and pathologies, made Latvians into betrayers and murderers of their own kind.

A documentary about two 13-year-old girls, both obsessed with fashion and developing their personal style. One of the girls lives in a small town in Latvia, the other one - in Norway. How do their surroundings influence their acts of self-expression? And how do their mothers cope with the idea that their little daughters are becoming adults?

Director Zigurds Vidiņš has been following Lidija Lasmane-Doroņina for more than 10 years with his camera. She was arrested in 1946, 1970 and 1983 by the Soviet regime, spending a total of 14 years in prison, her only crime: the dream of an independent Latvia. Thanks to Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika she was released from prison in May 1987. In 2010, Lidija Lasmane-Daroņina celebrated her 85th birthday, and On the Way of Light was released at the same time.

An emotional, figurative and historical study of the memories of people who were deported to Siberia as children on June 14, 1941. The suffering of these victims is presented in contrast to the beautiful landscapes of Siberia. On June 14, 2009, the film crew, some of the deported children who survived and returned to Latvia, and their children, go on a pilgrimage to Siberia to install memorial plaques in memory of the mothers and children who were deported between 1941 and 1949.

People are in the habit of searching afar for what is really at arm’s length. In the end, if people are destined to meet, they will find each other.

A cinematographic animation film directed by Jānis Cimmermanis. The screenplay is based on a work by Fricis Dziesma published in 1948, on the tradition of grain threshing in the Kurzeme region. Alongside the human lives, there are also the joys and woes of the little animals, and the lively whirl of intertwining events carries the viewer into the distant past, perhaps recognizing the fond memories shared by their parents or grandparents.

What draws thousands of people to leave everything behind and venture out into Siberian taiga, following Visarion, an ex-agent of the Soviet police who proclaims to be Jesus? The film tries to answer this question, showing the construction of the New Jerusalem, a resettlement «destined» to become the birthplace of a new civilization after the imminent apocalypse takes place.

"In the world of the fly," says biologist Uexkull, "we find only fly things. In the world of the sea urchin we find only sea urchin things." This is the Colonel’s story and here you will find only Colonel things.

In a Latvian bakery, Aina breaks 40000 eggs per day by hand, and she has done this monotone job for almost 20 years.

Latvian painter Boriss Bērziņš talks about life and art in his workshop. A documentary that was awarded "Lielais Kristaps" for best debut.

A six-year-old boy plots to stop his "sweetheart", a grown-up woman in his pre-World War II Latvian village, from marrying.

A fragment of the Berlin Wall in the centre of Riga.

Based on the novel by same name by Vladimir Makanin. A cabinetmaker falls in love with a poetess who is courted by a university professor. The cabinetmaker has a wife and two high school sons. He is confronted with a difficult choice between family and beloved woman...