Sound Director
A film about the outstanding Latvian film director Juris Podnieks, who during his lifetime gained the fame of a fighter for justice and an "eye-opener". Podnieks has created testimonies about the most important events of the twentieth century in the post-Soviet territory. He always saw a bigger picture, it was not just Latvia what interested him. His ability to cover such a wide spectrum of themes - wars, lost freedom of his own country, the Soviet regime and its collapse, young people, artists. But most importantly, he was always focusing on the human soul. Juris creates an emotional bond between the author and his characters, the characters and the viewer - he was talking to each individual. Perhaps this is why his films made such an effect on the viewer. Juris Podnieks has clearly been able to influence millions of viewers with his films. Juris himself died in the summer of 1992 in a diving accident. Did he manage to fulfill his mission in this life?
Sound Designer
Folded, rewritten, thrown away, wrinkled, crossed out, stuffed in a pocket, handed to the book keeper, only to find out later that it was the wrong one; then written down, torn out, worn out, sometimes crumpled up, with morning coffee stains. The film’s protagonist walks around the pulp mill with jagged movements, performing his duties. “I doubt we’ll meet again. I really do,” he repeats to himself, addressing the void.
Sound Director
They are bonded by their pain, longing, and their current residence – a semi-open prison for women. While staging Anton Chekhov’s play, Three Sisters, together with professional actors, imprisoned women reveal their harrowing life-stories, dreams and the longing for a decent life outside the prison walls.
Sound Director
Two boys find an unusual plastic bag with no handle. It turns out to be alive, moving around and being angry because it has become useless to everyone. The angry bag together with the boys is trying to find a new meaning of its life and a new use for other plastic bags that have become real trash hooligans.
Sound Designer
The camera stands in a house, the lens pointing through the window, outdoors, where the occupants of the home are standing. They respond patiently to the camera operator’s directions: a small step to the left, a little bit forward, no, back just a bit, yes, that’s perfect. Dozens of people pose in this way for a full minute. There’s a man who lives alone, a large family, an older woman on a trampoline. Some are entirely at ease, others more self-conscious. Rabbits, dogs, and cats are allowed to join these portraits, too. All of them are captured within the natural frame of the windows, along with the lace or floral curtains.
Sound Engineer
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.
Sound Director
An elderly man has arrived in Greece, Halkidiki. While fishing on his boat, he pulls out an old amphora, but its bottom breaks off and falls back into the sea. The old man calls the “Rescue team” for a help. Three “Rescue team” men arrive with their ship and put on scuba diver equipment, then go deep into the sea to find the lost property...
Sound Director
A CrossFit trainer becomes the father of a baby girl, Snow White. Snow White’s mother dies, and her father marries a young woman obsessed with CrossFit and herself. She works out all the time in order to be the best. And she really is the best – she can do 50 burpees. In the meantime, little Snow White plays and grows up in the CrossFit gym. Time passes, and one day it turns out – while the Stepmother can do 50 burpees, Snow White can already do 53 burpees...
Sound Director
Closing day of the season in the boarding house at the Vietinghoff Palace in the province of Latvia. Here the material world and atmosphere of the 1930s are reconstructed as fully as possible. According to the rules of the institution, guests must abandon all their means of digital communications. And this is what they are looking for: to disappear, at least for a while, and become inaccessible to the outside world. The lingering summer heat drags the guests into an insane frenzy where surrealistic and grotesque situations build up an ambiguous comedy.
Sound
This film is the cinematic continuation of a classic poem by the Latvian poet Rainis. It follows the subsequent adventures of its main heroes – eight peas – and their interactions with the world around them as well as with the cycles and laws of nature. These musical and countable stories tell about the peas’ adventures after spilling out of their original home, the pod.
Sound Director
The First Bridge is a film about frontiers, barriers, the ways to cross over and see what goes on, on the other side. But it also a film about time, as it was shot on Kodak Negative Films acquired in the year 1997 and discovered intact in 2018.
Sound Director
The men of The Rescue Team are finally on holidays and are traveling on their yellow boat through the English Channel. The satellite phone is ringing; London's famous Big Ben has broken down, so The Rescue Team rush to fix it. Morning comes and Big Ben is working again! However, when its time to ring comes around, the solution found by The Rescue Team is a great surprise to the Queen of England...
Sound Director
A film about a plastic spoon and a society that has reached a high level of development – oil is being retrieved from subterranean depths, transported to processing plants, turned into plastic, transported to another plant, where it acquires the shape of a spoon, transported to convenience stores, where we buy it, and is then soon tossed into the trash. In other words, this is a film about the efforts put into making a spoon that can be thrown away so effortlessly.
Sound Director
In the minds of people, Brussels is no longer a geographical location; it is now a myth-surrounded centre, where decisions are made regarding future life in Europe. The most brilliant minds from the European countries have convened in Brussels: former state leaders, highly-placed officials, advisors, translators and interpreters, as well as family members of all these people. Together, they comprise a sort of separate planet ruled by special laws and using new methods of communication; it is a place of a high concentration of power and all sorts of creature comforts. The anxiety following the 2016 attacks on Brussels has taken everyone by surprise, and the question whether to stay on Planet Brussels now comes up increasingly often. The Brexit news gave completely different kind of concussion to the commonly established center of Europe.
Sound Director
Small dust creatures live on the bookshelf and find the world around them to be their home. One of them, a little wise Dusty, suddenly encounters a boy. Their friendship turns the boring everyday life into a great adventure...
Sound Designer
Russian Federation, December 31, 1999. After President Boris Yeltsin's unexpected resignation, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin becomes acting president of the country. From that day and for a year, Vitaly Mansky's camera documented Putin's rise to power. The story of a privileged witness. The harsh explanation of the reason why politics is the art of possibility of achieving the best with the support of many, but also of giving the worst in return.
Sound Director
Latvian Imants Tillers is one of the most important Australian artists of his generation, creator of installations, sculptures, paintings and graphic arts. His work is a kind of a world book – events connect and cultural references intertwine in a mutually interactive system, nurturing his own search for identity.
Sound Director
Electricity goes off at the Eiffel tower security guard’s office. The guard tries to repair it, but he doesn't succeed, so he calls for “The Rescue Team”. The team arrives in their yellow plane and start the rescue operation by fixing cables. Initially, it works out well, but then the light suddenly goes off in all city of Paris, and the portrait of Mona Lisa disappears from the darkened Louvre Museum. However, things will work out fine in the end!
Sound Director
A person’s face and eyes preserve experience better than any document or recorded memoir. Particularly if a person has experienced as much as the well-known dissident Lidija Lasmane-Doroņina. Actually, she does not even think of herself as a dissident. She received her three terms in prisons and labour camps – fourteen years in all – as punishment not for underground struggle but for daring to remain true to her principles, convictions and faith. The ideals Lidija obtained as a child – the idyllic image of Latvia as an independent country, strong family values and faith in God as a moral measuring stick for any action. Her eyes are bright even today, at the age of 91, and they look at this world full of life.
Sound Director
In two monumental symbols of the national awareness sculptor Kārlis Zāle has immortalized his vision about the state of Latvia. Freedom Monument is the statement of the sculptor’s love for his native country. Kārlis Zāle with his characteristic monumental touch sees life in large and powerful lines; the same way he perceives also sculpture that requires much vital force and daring. The full-length documentary “The Wounded Rider” is based on facts from the life of the sculptor Kārlis Zāle and documents on the construction of the Freedom Monument, providing insight in the political and social scene of the age and presenting outstanding figures in the culture and art together with the ideals of that time.
Sound Director
A film about everything changing while remaining the same. Or rather – everything remaining the same while changing. We observed this (and wanted to share) while standing (standing regularly and for a long time) on a road rather close to the Eastern border of Latvia, because we followed the suggestion of the locals who asked to shoot “that horrible road”.
Sound Director
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.
Sound Director
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.
Sound Director
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.
Sound Director
For 91-year-old Ruta acting is not just a career: it is her lifestyle. Once again, she starts working on a new role. This time the theme of the play provokes questions about her own life: how does one deal with ageing? And, most importantly, - is there a specific time when an actress should leave the stage?
Sound Director
Waterfall and I, and – no, the other way around! This film is, of course, about nature – human nature. Or – what a human can do with the widest waterfall in Europe.
Sound
Over the course of one year, this film follows the life of an ordinary Pyongyang family whose daughter was chosen to take part in Day of the Shining Star (Kim Jong-il's birthday) celebration. While North Korean government wanted a propaganda film, the director kept on filming between the scripted scenes. The ritualized explosions of color and joy contrast sharply with pale everyday reality, which is not particularly terrible, but rather quite surreal.
Sound Director
A mysterious memory game about the Master – Arnolds Burovs (1915-2006), the founder of puppet animation in Latvia – retelling his life’s story through archival footage, film imagery and newly-created animation, which transports the Master to the dreamland of Bimini.
Sound Director
A shop by the side of the road. One after another, people enter and exit the small building. The randomness and illogical nature of the action feels unreal. The sense of timelessness and of being in an unnamed place further heightens the dreamlike nature of the scene. The nearly motionless black-and-white camera records a fragment of life in a place torn from the context of the world.
Sound Director
Based on a Soviet propaganda story about Young Pioneer (the Soviet equivalent of a Boy Scout) Morozov, who denounced his father to Stalin’s secret police and was in turn killed by his family. His life exemplified the duty of all good Soviet citizens to become informers, at any expense. In our film, 75 years later, we call him little Janis. He is a Pioneer who lives on the Soviet collective farm “Dawn”. His father is an enemy of the farm (and the Soviet system) and plots against it. Little Janis betrays his father; his father takes revenge upon his son. Who then in this old Soviet tale is good and who is bad? This film reveals that a distorted brain is always dangerous. Even today.
Sound Director
A man continues to throw rubbish into the forest, to the great annoyance of both the forest ranger and the forest animals, but when he refuses to stop, more drastic measures have to come into use – and this is where the forest ranger luckily gets the help of a dog, a cat and a mouse, who have had enough of the litter lout.
Sound Director
A group of Japanese tourists arrives to the Italian city of Pisa to see the famous crooked tower. There they are joined by a pensionerr from Latvia. While viewing the tower it suddenly begins to crook and frightened tourists rush to hold it. Their efforts are reported on TV globally, which is seen by "The Rescue Team" and so the men rush to save the tower and also the Latvian pensioneer…
Sound Director
Just like ordinary people, whole nations often wonder why their neighbors are living better than they are. For example, where did the Estonians living on Mohni Island suddenly get bicycles and sewing machines? Could the answer have some connection with the Latvian cargo ship "Rasma", which sank near Mohni in 1941?
Sound Editor
The main characters of the film have made choices, which change their lives forever. A young man Yigal Amir assassinates the Prime Minister of Israel and becomes the most hated prisoner in the country. Larissa, who emigrated from Russia, mother of four divorces her first husband, marries the assassin and gives birth to his son. For many years the film authors have been trying to solve and perceive this complicated story. One of them, Hertz Frank, passes away during the shootings remaining on the threshold of the eternal mystery - life, death and love...
Sound Director
A film examining the game of doubles of democracy and capitalism since the restoration of independence in Latvia. Freedom from the USSR, pilfering the state, victory in Eurovision, joining the EU and NATO, the greatest crisis in the world – a quarter century of contrast and challenges.
Sound Director
A documentary about the Latvian pop singer Mārtiņš Freimanis who died at the early age of 33. The director of this film, Arvīds Krievs, has directed two films starring Freimanis as an actor, and had an intimate connection with him as they were neighbours and Freimanis trusted him more than the journalists or reporters who interviewed him. Arvīds Krievs had planned to make a film about the singer for a few years, so he filmed the singer's life extensively.
Sound Director
Nearly everybody has been to the circus to laugh about clowns, be afraid of the lions and to eat sugar cane. However, can anyone imagine that circus artists reside right there in the circus building - above the arena in the second floor hotel rooms - where they also prepare meals, do their laundry and try out their magic tricks? For over 125 years, despite the discomfort of non-renovated premises and ubiquitous animal odor, local and foreign circus artists follow their routine to create the circus miracle. Sugarcane, Coati and Monowheel is a film about those who dwell in Riga Circus and about what happens outside the arena before and after meeting audience under the circus dome.
Sound Designer
Sound Director
This film is about wondering why the world is the place that it is. Wondering, why beauty often lies in simplicity, or why taking something too seriously might result in the ridiculous, as playing can be at once the most important and serious thing to do.
Sound Director
The elderly nursing home residents for years feel worthless and troublesome. But then a crazy idea strikes them - to waive their pensions and enroll in the army as volunteers thus saving the country from financial crisis and spending excitingly the last years of their lives. The oldies are wise enough at organizing this event and now real adventures begin.
Sound Director
An exceptional museum in Sweden houses the Vasa sailboat – a ship that has been lifted out from the bottom of the sea where it ended up after an unfortunate maiden voyage. One day, the museum staff notice a rat in the boat’s hull and begin setting traps to catch the rodent before it damages this brilliant museum piece; however, as it turns out, the rat is not alone. In fact, there are surprisingly many of them. The staffs’ attempts to get rid of the rodents prove futile. And, because of its gentle Swedish upbringing, even the cat they bring in doesn’t help. They need to call in the experts – the Rescue Team!
Sound Director
In the snowy forest dwarfs are busy as Christmas Eve is approaching! Dwarf girl bakes gingerbread cookies and shapes one into a small man – Crispy. The little gingerbread man comes alive and is very curious. In the big world he will not only have fun adventures and face danger, but he will also discover the wonders of the Season...
Sound Director
This is the second film based on themes from Margarita Stāraste’s fairy-tales. Rosie is a red colouring pencil, who, together with the other pencils, colours in the author’s story as it progresses. Their work continues until the moment they are interrupted by the appearance of an uninvited fly. Chasing the fly, Rosie ends up with in the land of dew drops, grassmen, meadow maidens, and other forest creatures. He has stepped into a fairy-tale. There, Rosie enthusiastically helps out with jobs in the forest; however, in the meantime, the story has become a bit unusual without the colour red...
Sound Director
A story about life in two minutes.
Sound Director
It’s summer in a village by the sea, and a retired actor once again invites locals to participate in an open-air opera performance. During the past ten years they’ve staged many classical operas; this year it’s time for Schoenberg and Verdi.
Sound Director
A poetic portrait of the western coastline of Latvia that, accompanied by songs about fish and the sea, roaring of vessel engines and factory alacrity, gives a glimpse into the life by the sea where the smell of fish and sea water is still present.
Sound Director
“Vestards is a God, a God of pianists! The power of his energy is unbelievable!” – after a concert said a fan of Vestards her eyes shining in excitement. Where does the internationally acclaimed pianist Vestards imkus find the source of the divine energy he is so generously offering to his audiences? We are looking for the answers following Vestards for four years and catching a glimpse of his love for nature and life in his remote countryside home in four different seasons. We also observe him at concerts and rehearsals in Riga, Berlin, Madona, Barcelona, Liepāja, London and Bilbao – not pointing out the geography of destinations but documenting the pianist’s absolute devotion for music.
Sound Director
Once upon a time there was a chimney. By the chimney - there were three houses. In the houses there were seven girls. All of them - blondes.
Sound Director
As soon as I finished my first marathon, I wanted to become a tripod in order to make a film about it. That is because words are certainly not the right instruments to tell us what it’s like to run a marathon. I think we can try to show it through the characters, noises, texts, lights, the absolute physical understanding of shadows and of the sun, the water, the motions and the serenity. For those who do not practice running in marathons because they don’t want to or because they can’t, I wish to bring something from inside the marathon, out; for example, for my Mum, whose legs ache. I am acting like a spy sent into the marathon.
Sound Director
One spring morning, animals wake up from their winter sleep and find that their forest is taken over by people who have built a city there. They understand they need to find new survival strategies and learn to earn money.
Sound Director
Playfully avant-garde and exhibiting an intriguing sense of humor, PIZZAS offers a puzzle of widescreen imagery, brash pop moments, and road movie ambience. Pakalnina, Latvia’s best-known director, spun this cryptic but airy comedy/tragedy from a news item about two 18-year-old fast-food workers who robbed their employer’s safe and split. (Gene Siskel Film Center)
Sound Director
Adam’s first wife Lilith is mentioned in the ancient Oriental legends, in Talmud and in the medieval books of Cabala. According to these sources, she was not created from Adam's rib like Eve but from clay like he himself. Nevertheless Lilith was not recognised by Adam as his equal and left him after a quarrel heading for Babylon. She has no soul, and she is immortal. Lilith assumes different names, can change her appearance, and takes possession of men against their will. Once it's accomplished, she leaves her victims forever, marking them for either spiritual, or physical death. Whatever she does it is neither Good nor Evil. She is made of an altogether different matter. Inspired by the works of French writer Anatole France, Yevgeny Pashkevich‘s GULF STREAM UNDER THE ICEBERG consists of three dramatically interwoven stories with the immortal Lilith stalking through time and space with her demonic mission.
Sound Director
MONA is a modern and thrilling drama with erotic and fantasy elements. In a rural area where a slaughterhouse is the only industry lives a mysterious nature child Mona. The dull routine of villagers is broken by a city businessman Thomas who comes there for his uncle’s funeral and to sell the inherited estate. Meeting Mona throws Thomas in a dangerous maelstrom of illusions, passion and obsession.
Sound Director
Colourful jungle, dancing dwarves and a pirate girl Vanessa. It is a story of a regular lovely girl, and it makes no difference that she is blind! An optimistic and inspiring animation about learning and accepting our natural differences, voiced by Vanessa herself.
Sound Director
A bull fight takes place in the main arena in Madrid, the capital of Spain. This time, however, the toreador is not as successful as usual and must run away to save his life. Finding a safe place from the angry beast, the toreador uses his mobile phone to call for help. The Rescue Team receives his distress call. It is the very first call from Europe. Using their new, yellow airplane, three brave men depart immediately for a rescue mission...
Sound Director
This documentary deals with faith, human aging, a struggle to fulfill your vision and above all - one particular building. In its poetical minimalism the film observes the construction of the new Latvian National Library, which has become a metaphor for a temple, a boiling-point for an entire nation.
Sound
There is a popular Latvian folksong which begins with the phrase "I was singing out high on a mountain". The irony of it is that according to physical geography there are no mountains in Latvia. So what exactly is the place where the Latvians are "singing out"? It may be safely said that it's the same place where they are skiing. That's how we make mountains out of molehills...Snow-covered mountains, to be sure.
Sound Director
A documentary about the band of Latvian exhile musicians, "Čikāgas piecīši".
Sound Director
A former actor is fascinated by an idea. He meets a scientist, a speech therapist, and a juggler, and convinces them to stage Endgame by Samuel Beckett. They believe that Beckett’s play about four people trapped in a world that is about to collapse describes the situation in which they find themselves in.
Sound Director
Santa Claus lives on the fourth floor of an apartment block. Santa owns seven dogs, six cats, two rabbits, one crow, one pigeon, one chinchilla, one guinea pig, ten degus and some fish.
Sound Director
Sometimes even those who are used to crawling, get to fly.
Sound Director
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.
Sound
A dark caravan arrives in the city during the night. The next morning children find a big box left on the street. Strange sounds come from this box. The famous Rescue Team men have been called in to help...
Sound Director
In 1986, Juris Podnieks made his film "Is it easy to be young?". The film became extremely popular and very soon was shown in 85 countries, which was a tremendous success for a Latvian film. It was even regarded as "the first bird of Perestroika". In 1998 the follow up film was made. It was extremely interesting to find out how the new economic system after the fall of the Soviet regime in Latvia had changed the lives of the persons filmed 10 years ago. "Is it easy to be...? After 10 years" also got an international recognition. The question 20 years later was- does anything change in this world or perhaps there are things that never change?! What has become of these brave youngsters who had once helped to destroy the Soviet system and who are now the generation of forty?
Sound Director
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).
Sound Director
Rubiks’ Road is a bicycle path built in the 1980s and named after Alfreds Rubiks, leader of the Latvian Communist party at the time. One of the most ferocious opposers to Latvia’s independence in the early 1990s and later elected to the European Parliament.
Sound Director
In 1946, a group of Latvian Brazilian Baptist missionaries arrived to Rincon del Tigre (“Jaguar’s Corner”), in the backwoods of Bolivia, to preach God’s word to the Ayoreo Indians. After sixty years of selfless work in a largely hostile environment, something seems to have gone terribly wrong. Habituated to living under the protective wings of the mission, the Ayoreos seem neither to be willing to support themselves and start living on their own, nor able to return to their traditional way of life in the jungle. Dressed in second-hand clothes, they are stranded in the backwoods of Western-style civilization, with no particular way to go.
Sound Director
An ordinary day turns into an adventure and becomes an extraordinary day.
Sound Director
Rudolf is a 13 year-old boy obsessed with filmmaking. As a matter of fact, it’s the only thing he’s really fond of. His main interest is horror films, and he uses a special technique to make them – drawing each shot on long strips of paper. He shows the films on a slide projector with a special live soundtrack. Rudolf ’s story illustrates the conflict between the imaginary world of a boy and the society surrounding him, where everybody expects him to live according to certain rules and dogmas. How does he cope with it? The biggest surprise comes when the local priest asks Rudolf to make a film to be played during the service.
Sound Director
Sound Director
Peter is just another peter, so very ordinary. He works at the office where colleagues make fun of him, the boss makes sexual advances and the sick mother harasses him at home. Step by step his life becomes completely unbearable. Once by a chance Peter happens to try magic mushrooms and this adventure turns into new move towards a different life.
Sound Director
Once upon a time a strange magician arrives during the festivities at the King’s palace. He is a Master of Ice, and his specialty is to freeze everything. The King does not like the icy magic, and the magician is impolitely sent away. Even the Princess laughs at him. But later the angry magician returns and freezes the Princess, stealing her away to his ice castle. When they try to rescue her, the Mater of Ice freezes the whole kingdom. Only young Page remains unfrozen, and he is only one who can try to rescue the Princess...
Sound Director
A film about the great 20th century sculptor whose work was inspired by the cubism of the 1920s, and her life story which contains all possible dramas for a creative person living in the previous century.
Sound Director
A rap-style musical animation about the adventures of working-class children in Rīga at the beginning of the 20th century – about their first loves, troubles and joys.
Sound Director
Seagulls and sea, a breakwater and otherwise nothing but wasteland and cold wind. On the concrete, a chic handbag, scattered high heels and long legs in a tight miniskirt. Vika, a famous model, lies shivering on the cold ground after a heavy night drinking, left behind by a guy in a convertible. Little Mika finds her: she also dreams of becoming a model and Vika is her idol.
Sound Director
There should be silence in a museum. And someone should see to it that the silence is there. It's the logical order of things. However, it might seem weird to somebody.
Sound Editor
Can you honestly swear that at least once in your life you have not thought that robbing a bank is a good idea? Especially, if you're five years old and that bank has just thrown your parents out of a brand new apartment, because your father has lost his job. Five year old Robby is no Zorro, but he'd like to be. His seven year old sister Louise thinks he's too childish, but can't resist the game of robbing a bank. Together they can pull off just about anything. Getting away with it is the hard part.
Sound Director
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.
Sound Director
Some people collect family albums. Sarmīte Sīle, an accomplished arts scholar, takes a nude photo of herself every ten years. Behind this unique series of nude photos that span a lifetime, is her story.
Sound Director
Even if you’re born to fly, it's not an easy thing to learn. And not everyone succeeds.
Sound
No one knows how it happened, but not long ago a Latvian bear arrived on the Estonian island of Ruhnu. The islanders were really afraid. At first they tried to catch the bear, but were only able to find his footprints. Later they invited a professional hunter from Finland with a special bear dog. Still no success...
Sound Director
Three elderly country bachelors idle away their time amidst semi-wild nature, closer to birds and pond fish than to humans.
Sound Director
A man in a grey coat roams the city. He is interested in boys and men. Those good enough for him will get a green bag. Marija is home alone. She is the only woman to get a green bag. But the film does not end quite there.
Sound Director
An entomologist finds a new type of bug in the meadow and would be glad to add it to his collection. But bugs don’t want to be museum objects – the two bug girls have to find a way to save their parents.
Sound Director
A dream world where time stands still and memories and fantasies intervene.
Sound Director
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.
Sound Director
In the ice-free months of the year Father Gennady captains a barge transformed into a floating Orthodox Church on a mission trip along the Volga-Don Canal to the remote Russian villages. At each port of call Father Gennady leads church services, distributes holy sacraments and hears confessions. But some unexpected circumstances cause the mission to suddenly take a rather different turn.
Sound Director
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.
Sound Director
A testament to the power of film – a witty summary of the entire history of Latvia from ancient to modern times in eight minutes.
Sound Director
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.
Sound Director
Sometimes we got lost. And then we have to be found again, so that no one is sad.
Sound Director
The old forest-guard lives in a house in the middle of the woods surrounded by his friends, the animals. One day he hears that the hunters are planning a hunt. The situation seems hopeless, but there is someone who can help – the Rescue Team.
Sound Director
Even before Marija was born it was clear that she would be a person getting in trouble all the time. However, that’s not all. The most important thing is that she is often alongside firemen. Is it because things around her catch fire?
Sound Director
Nominated as one of the best Latvian short films in 2007
Sound Director
The existence of two parallel communities – one Latvian, the other Russian, is the reality of present day Latvia. After the establishment of an independent Latvian Republic in 1991, the Russian speaking community began to see themselves as a threatened minority and started to depict themselves as oppressed. Where does the truth lie? Are there victims? Or is it simply that the idea of integration, for both sides, does not work properly?
Sound Director
Every day, come rain or shine, Theodore used to bike the seven kilometres from his house to the centre of the village to sit and drink beer in the bus stop. For him, no doubt, this place was the centre of the Universe. With his death, the centre has moved elsewhere, and the bus stop is just a bus stop again.
Sound Director
A classic story known all over the world that has captured and thrilled generations of children and adults now in puppet animation format. With all of the sense of childish enthusiasm intact, this romantic story disguised as humour and farce will once again delight.
Sound Designer
The Hijacker lands the plane at the Rīga Airport. 7 year-old Tom, travelling on his own, voluntarily becomes a hostage. Along with the traditional demands, the Hijacker adds the demands of the little hostage – beginning with some local chocolate and a self-instruction tape for learning the native language, and ending with organizing a Song Festival and a special biathletes’ performance – all ideas originating from a CD on Latvia.
Music
The Hijacker lands the plane at the Rīga Airport. 7 year-old Tom, travelling on his own, voluntarily becomes a hostage. Along with the traditional demands, the Hijacker adds the demands of the little hostage – beginning with some local chocolate and a self-instruction tape for learning the native language, and ending with organizing a Song Festival and a special biathletes’ performance – all ideas originating from a CD on Latvia.
Sound Director
A jolly, care-free, slightly absent-minded Witch loses her magic button. What would the world have looked like if the witch hadn’t found it again!?
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Maria decides to go for a swim in the pool even though it looks deserted and she’s warned that the water is cold. When she gets into the pool she is faced with not only the frigid water, but with her other feelings as well. Like fear.
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Jānis was an actor – respected and in demand. Dina came to the Liepāja Theatre to become an actress. In the summer of 1992, Jānis fell off the roof of his house, broke his back and was partially paralysed. The doctors promised things would get better but they didn’t. They now live in a harsh reality which seems unbearable.
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She is beautiful and sexy, and this is her story about loneliness, hope and illusions.
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The characters of the movie are closely twisted. Each of the heroes is a slave to their own passions. Only through strong will and some happy event they will be able to free themselves from their addictions.
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Baron Munchausen’s string of victories against the Turks is disrupted by a love letter from his bride, Jacobine von Dunten, propelling the Baron into an adventure-filled journey back to her.
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From midnight until early morning you can travel to any suburb of Riga on a streetcar named Help, whose interior becomes a stage for life’s dramas, human exhaustion and hope. The streetcar is a democratic place where anyone can spend some time.
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Viesturs Kairišs’ 2004 documentary The Monument investigates the interpretation of Riga’s Soviet Second World War memorial in the post-Soviet era. The "Victory Monument" was established by the Soviets to celebrate freeing Latvia from Nazi Germany. However, for Latvians, this didn't mean "freedom", it meant the beginning of another occupation of their country - this time, by Soviet Union.
Included in the collection "Europe's old new faces : Ten countries, ten young directors. Ten stories about monuments situated somewhere between yesterday and tomorrow".
Sound Director
An emotional and stylistically consistent documentary musical depicting the staging of Bernstein’s West Side Story with deaf youths. The dramatic material is intertwined with life and the emotional scenes of the musical; it creates a distinctive choreography, which is a statement of the deaf people’s craving to love this world and to be open. Reciting to music, which is the way of singing of the deaf, is the strongest and most unexpected witness of the realities of their world.
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There are places that we don’t want to know anything about, places that we would rather pretend don’t exist at all. One such place is a dumpsite. From the humans’ point of view, it is a ghastly place, a stinking desert of trash. But it’s a desert that is teaming with life.
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Once upon a time an old married couple lived in love and happiness, but they did not have any children until one day the old man found a small hedgehog in cabbages. So the fairy-tale about the endless power of love and faith begins, the fairy-tale about the Prickly.
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A little girl’s father has to go to London. The little girl and her toy rabbit would like to go with him. Of course that’s out of the question. Yet little girls aren’t into giving up and even the smallest suitcase proves big enough.
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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.
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Various people on the street stand stock still in front of the movie camera as though their photograph were about to be taken. This lasts just a few instants, then they nod as they look into the camera and move on. A family, a group of friends, men. In the background, city noises.
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A documentary about Latvians in the United States.
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An absurdist farce centering around a school in post-Soviet Latvia. After a rather disgusting prank (someone defecates in the school attic), the tyrannical headmistress deems that no one can leave until the culprit is caught. When the photographer's pet python escapes, havok breaks loose.
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John is arrested on his 40th birthday, just on the day when he has realized that everything he has been doing before has increased the absurdity and senselessness of this world.
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Otis, a young firefly, is in trouble. He wants a girlfriend and he can't get his light to shine as bright as the others.
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A film about the daily life of Martin, a handicapped child who will always be dependent on his parents. Ever since he was very small, Martin has had to get around in a wheelchair and has needed the constant help of an adult. Martin’s parents, Inga and Andris Skesteri, tell about their life, about their son’s character and about their hopes for the future.
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A philosophical study and personal myth of creation of a woman and her two ways to encounter a man. Screened both at Woodstock and KROK, the film captivates viewers with the elusive and not wholly understandable inner world of a woman.
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Two travellers are making their way to the Palace in hopes to find meaning of life. Do they know that this road is life-long?
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How the Stripped one and the Dotted one were playing in one sandbox and how it all ended.
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A tale about a nine-year old boy's relationship with the world around him, shot in one of Latvia's poorest and most beautiful regions - Latgale
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A documentary about the creative process of Latvian artist Ilmārs Blumbergs, also featuring poet Imants Tilbergs who is trying to write one and the same book all his life.
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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.
Sound Director
To be a harp player or a proffesional guard-for-hire? A young musician, at the very beginnig of his professional career. As many creative-minded young people in Latvia, he faces a dilemma: to devote his life to art or to change his profession and live a financially more guaranteed life. Young harp-player’s story and his creative road in the pragmatic world of today.
Sound Director
In the mid – 1960’s, Latvia was a part of the Soviet Union. People lived identical lives, listened to the same radio stations. Children wore the same boots and ate the same porridge every morning. Only their dreams and desires for something different set them apart from each other. For little Dace this is a moment, where stand still of childhood’s happiness turns into time for growing up. "A fullfilled expression of Beauty in the passage of Life." (Dmitry Rancev, "The Independent", Latvia) "Competent and Spartan…" (Jan Ingman, catalogue of "Stockholm IFF")
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“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.
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It is what it is. One needs a reason to get a passer-by to stop in their tracks and stand in front of the camera for a while. In this case the reason was - Mozart.
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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.
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It is a bit funny and a bit sad story about snowmen and…spring. Everyone has got their time and place in this world. Like that rabbit who managed to get fresh carrots in spring.
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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.
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Wedding rituals and a love triangle.
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At the end of World War II, many Latvians, Lithuanians, and Estonians fled the Soviet rule. They stayed abroad for many years. Now, after the regaining of independence of the three Baltic states, they are coming back. Their stories vary.
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There is a planet near Earth where strange creatures live. They look like birds and they eat meteorites. Although their behaviours seem strange and completely different from ours, we have a lot more in common than it might seem at first.
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Little Devils revolves around two mischievous devils who make their way up from hell to a farmhouse in Latvia. The devils start pulling devilish pranks, such as putting the farmer to bed in the barn, and the bull to bed beside the farmer’s wife. When two thieves enter the scene, chaos ensues as they discover "the farmer" is a monster and "the bull" can talk.
Sound Editor
Every night, Soviet tractors comb the coast of Latvia looking for signs of anyone who could have infiltrated the Soviet border from the sea. One morning, three Soviet patrolmen discover a woman’s shoe in the sand and footsteps leading to the quaint little village of Liepaja.
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A humorous puppet animation short by the idiosyncratic animation studio "Animācijas brigāde". It's morning in the forest, the Tiger and the Bird are waking up, but their usual morning routine gets interrupted by a misunderstanding that leads them down an eventful path along with all the other animals that happen to get in their way...
Sound Designer
The morning begins when the mail is delivered - this has been a tradition for almost an eternity. This film looks at daily things, daily movements, daily life and the daily routines of the postman, which are nevertheless meaningful to those who await and receive newspapers and letters.
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While Munks and Lemijs are having a nap, a fellow animal loses their tail under mysterious circumstances. It's time for our heroes to wake up and help out a friend in need and help them find their tail!
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The strange creatures Munk and Lemmy encounter very human problems and attempts at solving them. Here, they try to help their friend the rabbit, who is unable to reach the fruit he desires. A film from the Munk and Lemmy series.
Sound Designer
The ferry crosses the river, transporting people from one shore to the other, from one country to another. It runs year round, never stopping. The footage was filmed on the Latvian-Belarussian border in the early 1990s - a time when the Soviet Union began to crumble and Latvia regained its independence.
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The film is an emotional story about fateful historical events in the 20th century, which took place in three Baltic countries- Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. The story is also about their efforts to gain independence.
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A film about national belonging, featuring Latvian director Alvis Hermanis.
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A series of documentaries exploring life in the Soviet Union during the glasnost era of the late 1980s.
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The 1980s. Kārlis did his military service in Afghanistan and is now confined to a wheelchair. Before he left, he had fallen in love with the teacher Judīte, but she has now married a rich man...and poses nude for Kārlis' neighbour, the cynical photographer Rūdofs. Soon Rūdolfs is found dead, and Kārlis admits to having murdered him. But investigator Konrāds suspects that Kārlis is incriminating himself.
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Portrayal of rebellious teenagers growing up under Communist rule in Latvia.
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