Ego Media

When 15-year-old rebellious Stefi goes missing, her mother Helena has nothing left to lose anymore – why cling to sanity when madness offers a chance for reconciliation and love?

The Man Who Saved the World is a feature documentary film about Stanislav Petrov, a former lieutenant colonel of the Soviet Air Defence Forces.

Leningrad, 1970. A group of young Jewish dissidents plot to hijack an empty plane and escape the USSR. Caught by the KGB a few steps from boarding, they were sentenced to years in the gulag and two were sentenced to death; they never got on a plane. 45 years later, filmmaker Anat Zalmanson-Kuznetsov reveals the compelling story of her parents, leaders of the group, "heroes" in the West but "terrorists" in Russia, even today.

When his family moves to the city of Zlín and 16-year-old David joins a new hockey team, the Wolves, he is determined to succeed. There’s, however, the other goalie, Miky – and his position seems unshakeable. The team doesn’t welcome David with open arms either. Captain Jerry and his gang do as they please, while the team follows the ‘law of the pack’. David has been weakened by his recently discovered diabetes, and that is not tolerated here. He is still coming to terms with his body, learning to estimate the insulin doses his life depends on. On the team, David is the outsider, bracing the avalanche of bullying that gradually gains speed.

Through following the twists and turns of three generations of women in the Russian-speaking Latvian film director’s family, the film attempts to look at the reality of the half-million community of Russians in the Baltic countries in 2020. Through the story of a grandmother – a veteran of the Second World War who came to Latvia in 1955 in search of a better life, a mother – a lecturer in a closing down Transport and Telecommunication Institute , and an eighteen-year-old daughter – an artist, a student of the prestigious Latvian Art School. The film tries to understand whether this family managed to find its place in the new society after 30 years of Latvian Independence.

A Latvian tragicomedy about a young artist who bears witness to the dramatic political upheavals of the WWII era. As brutal regimes come and go, his country, his village, his people, and even his heart are swept up in the inexorable currents of history.

Mikhail Tal. From a Far is a documentary exploring the unpredictable and tragic life of the genius world chess champion Mikhail Tal, Riga's native son. Mikhail Tal becomes the youngest world chess champion at 23. The same year, he was diagnosed with incurable kidney disease and given only one year to live. Through sheer will and reckless abandon he managed to live another 40 years, filling them with a string of remarkable chess successes, unexplainable failures, amorous conquests and a life-threatening game of cat and mouse with the KGB.

After the lives of several people are tied into a intriguing knot upon meeting police officer Krasts one hot summer day, they’re all brought together again on a full moon winter night. Intrigue develops among a couple of lovers, Gints and Elga, three adventure-race participants with one woman, Renate, on their team, three generations of a family whose father, Karlis, died in a tragic hunting accident, Karlis’s daughter Aija, his former lover Livija, and a young girl hardened by life, who lives at a Christian home for expectant mothers. A detective twist is added by a bit of poison, which one of them will get.

An insecure millennial woman pursues her dream whilst learning how to adult. While being preoccupied with life tasks at hand she can barely handle and also severe depression, main character of this film Marta (30) keeps dreaming about making films, drawn to the healing power of storytelling, but not having the courage to act these dreams out; sometimes she is too scared to even pick up the phone. Marta’s life seems to sway both in comic and tragic directions: it’s sometimes a mix of ultimate freedom, sex, drugs, friendship, laughter, alcohol, lots of alcohol, music, honesty and love, and sometimes the reality Marta avoids to face becomes so brutal she can’t take it anymore. Through the course of the film Marta learns there is an unavoidable question that at some point becomes inevitable for almost every filmmaker: if you really want to direct films, can you first direct yourself out of depression?

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.

Ilze Burkovska, a little girl who is obsessed with stories of World War II and will be a filmmaker in a distant future, lives in Latvia under the totalitarian boot of the Soviets and the ominous shadow of the many menaces and horrors of the Cold War.

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.

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?

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.

Pavlensky/Pawlenski, artist and activist, is leading the way in forging social change in Russia. Through an multiple courageous performances, he acts as society's conscience in the face of an increasingly totalitarian state. From lying naked in a coil of barbed wire, to nailing his scrotum to the floor of Red Square, his acts of defiance aim to spark debate and catalyse reform. This documentary follows his mission to challenge the state.

Vitaly Mansky’s intimate and insightful new documentary finds him crisscrossing Ukraine in the wake of the Maidan uprising, which has left his relatives scattered on both sides of a highly charged and dizzyingly complex political situation.

For the post-war generation in Latvia, the dream of the “good old days” became a significant part of the process of regaining independence. The dream of restoring the countryside to the way it was during the first independence is only now seen by most as naïve and unreal. Six episodes that reflect the historical development in the nation parallel to the fate of the director’s mother are used to explore the effects of political order on everyday lives. Though she is now leaving the countryside, the process of moving her life provides a visual stimulus for memories.

Piirissaar is a tiny Estonian island in Lake Peipus, on the very border of Russia. The Russian Old Believers who inhabited the island appeared here 300 years ago, during the Great Northern War, fleeing from the religious reforms in the Orthodox Church and to avoid being mobilized in the Russian army. As the waves have washed the island smaller and smaller, the community here has also fused over time, inevitably reaching the brink of extinction. However, the local culture and sense of life that developed in isolation from the rest of the “Russian world” has not yet completely disappeared from Piiriissaar.

The protagonist of the film, Viktors, after losing his eyesight not only gets over depression and sense of estrangement but goes on living a full-fledged life – he forms a relationship, finds strength and motivation for mental development. Aware of his difference from the ones who can see, Viktors does not feel unworthy and loses no hope. Instead, he perceives the inconveniences, caused by the elusive or illogical attitude of the society and lawmakers, with humor, as if they were curiosities.

Elsa falls in love with a quadriplegic genius, her patient Nicola, whose mansion hides a secret – Nicola is obsessed with the creation of an artificial intellect. His creation, named Anna, stops at nothing to keep her master just for herself.