Raimonds Špakovskis

Former ice researcher and Orthodox pastor Andrey Voronin is called Ice-Breaker because of his brave opinions. A unique children’s home, whose foster children are now famous in the whole of Russia, was created under his guidance. The pastor thinks that life is a fight and you have to be prepared for it all of the time. This is why, together with the children, he conquers the tops of mountains.

In Seda, a remote peat miners' town in Latvia, time seems to be frozen in the Soviet era. Built in 1952 and inhabited by a multi-ethnic workforce from different parts of the former USSR, it still preserves intact the inflated style of a Stalinist "shock work" construction project. Culturally Seda's people feel like a community apart. Their lingua franca is Russian, and their social life is a mixture of Soviet and Russian Orthodox traditions. They don't want the European Union, they want to live in their own state - the Marshland.

The world seen through the eyes of children. The action takes place in Karosta, the former military port of Liepaja city – however, it is not that important, as the film could take place anywhere. We observe children playing on the beach, revealing the core of Pakalnina’s work: perceiving and transmitting emotions.

In the early 1980’s two hundred pairs of common terns (Sterna hirundo) were forced to abandon their last natural nesting place on a river island near a major European capital Riga. Looking for a new habitat, the birds chose the flat pebbled roof of a concrete island – a printing house – in the middle of the city. The first generation of birds to grow up on this roof and fly to Southern Africa every winter have covered the distance from the Earth to the Moon. During the film various human attitudes towards the terns will emerge. The attitude of the birds is clear – they view things form above.