Elīna Gediņa-Ducena

Through six very different families, documentary “The Land” shows the variety of the countryside in the 21st century, the contradictions of countryside living as well as illusions about farmer’s life. There are various reasons why our protagonists chose to live in the homesteads, away from the hustle and bustle of the city. Some were done with spending too much time in an office, traffic and living a virtual life, they wanted real, tangible things. Some have moved to countryside by their own choice, but some by predisposition of their families. But what unites them all - they aspire for the stability provided by their own land and house. Together with our protagonists, we will spend one year’s cycle of farmer’s life, that will start with the spring sowing and finish with the autumn harvest and land preparation for the next year.

Almost 30 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union we can observe the return of rhetoric of a strong person of the totalitarian era. Could this be facilitated by the remains of totalitarian subservience in our heads and minds? The Director of the film Ivo Briedis and journalist Rita Ruduša, both born in the USSR, are going on a journey to explore the phenomenon of “Homo Sovieticus” and to discover whether a human being of the totalitarian mindset has specific geographical boundaries.

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.

The only novel written by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, The Leopard (Il Gattopardo, 1958), just like its screen adaptation by Luchino Visconti, is considered a masterpiece. This film tells about the life of Tomasi and his German-Baltic wife Alexandra von Wolff-Stomersee – their unusual love story. The chaos of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and World War II forced Alexandra to leave St. Petersburg and later on – the family's castle in Stāmeriena, Latvia. During the war, in 1943, she fled to her husband in Palermo, where she would live until the day she died.

“Lustrum” was one of the state administration principles of the Roman Empire – a five-year period after which public administrators underwent a purification and repentance process that was usually accompanied by a sacrifice. During this time, the representatives of the previous administration confessed all their sins, repented and genuinely swore allegiance to the new administration. The Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Latvia has made a decision to open the KGB archives in May 2018. The film is an endeavour to answer the question of whether the lustration that never took place in the 1990s may turn out to be dangerous for the future existence of statehood.

August 1942: Amidst the unimaginable suffering inflicted during the blockade of Leningrad by the German Wehrmacht, an orchestra director was given an almost impossible task: to stage the premiere of Dimitri Shostakovitch's "Leningrad Symphony". The performance became a symbol of the brief triumph of culture over the barbarism of war.

Deniss is a Russian-speaking young man working at a fast food chain and spending his days in a small, gloomy apartment where all the things still remind him of his dead grandmother. Once a week he takes the stage, becoming a stand-up comedian. His jokes come from his life, which might be called dull as well as bleak, and, as he puts it, his ‘uninteresting biography’.

This investigative documentary explores the methods through which Russia influences the domestic policy of the Baltic States – by dividing the local community, promoting nostalgia for the Soviet Union and dismissing the recovered independence of the Baltic States.