Interviews were conducted over a seven year period with 670 people who were deported to Siberia as children in 1941. Fragments of their memories form a mosaic revealing their past experiences of losing fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters. Time heals, but nothing is forgotten and the stories must be told.
In 1941 almost 4,000 children under the age of 16 were deported from Latvia to Siberia. Some returned to Latvia, many perished, and many were left in exile, where they had their own children. Nadežda Āriņa and Anatolijs Taurenis were born in the 1950s in permanently frozen Igarka in Siberia. Their mothers had been childhood friends in Latvia before their deportation. Nadja returned to Latvia where she now sells souvenirs, but for Taurenis Latvia is still a dream. In 2007, Nadežda heads to Igarka to visit Taurenis.
The children who were sent to Siberia in 1941 have not seen their fathers – in their memories they recollect: “My father was arrested, he was sent to Vyatlag camp. He died there in March, 1942. He was not convicted. Father was tried in the autumn of 1942, when he was already dead, Moscow Troika verdict: 10 years in prison and confiscation of property...”The railcar moves along overgrown rails. For 70 years, the twelve participants of the journey have wanted to go to the places from where their fathers did not return. Among the harsh nature the tension on their faces shows.
In the documentary, director Dzintra Geka has created an engaging portrait of Latvian painter Juris Jurjāns. The film delves into his world, embodying a visually rich narrative of freedom in art, life energy, and virtuosity. As always, Juris Jurjāns chooses beauty as the leading theme of his artist and refuses to conform to the rules dictated by old age. He continues to indulge in fine drinks, puffs cigars, and paints. Every day he travels to his studio, where he finds solace in his canvases.
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.
A documentary about Miķelis Lisments - a controversial director of fishermen kolkhoz "Banga" in Roja, a village in North-West Latvia.
The story of the secret of self-creativity, the loneliness of the soul, the meridians of con-sciousness and the scope of man. Ilmārs Blumbergs (1943-2016) is a concept in life than can be classically proven if we analyze his work in set design, poster art, painting and multimedia work. The personality of Blumbergs, however is a shifting and intangible material which ensures superior value, wonderfulness and intimacy to all that he created. Those who analyze his art and world perceptions, recognize the work as seeming to come from antiquity, but it can never be catalogued or recorded in bookkeeping. How fortunate that it also cannot be consumed.
The 1949 deportations were one of the most tragic aspects of contemporary Latvian history. 43,000 people were deported to Siberia for life, with 10,000 infants and children, elderly people, and even people raised from their deathbed among them. 4,941 persons perished. Every fourth deportee was a child. Every sixth deportee was 60 or older.
Andris Caune, Ojārs Grensbergs, Imants Grāvītis and Jānis Zemtautis spent many years in the Gulag camps. They survived. In 1954, a riot broke out in Jezkazan, Kazakhstan. The men’s camp and women’s camp joined together and held on for 40 days. Then came the tanks that killed more than 1,000 of them. Austra Vērpe met her future husband there. They were lucky to stay alive. The dream of the musician Zigfrīds Muktupāvels was to find the grave of his paternal uncle in far-off Kazakhstan. He was named after his uncle, who never came home. Zigfrīds and a cousin headed off into the steppes to look for a monument reading “Zigfrīds Muktupāvels.” The next round of deportations occurred in 1949, and whole families were sent to Siberia. Fathers were tried in court, a great many ended up in punitive camps in Vorkuta and Inta. Skaidrīte Jostmane and Māris Landers travelled to Vorkuta to find their father’s gravesite.
The story of the world-renowned Liepāja-born cinematographer Eduard Tisse, whose wife was convinced it was he who created all the famous films of Sergei Eisenstein. The creators of the film develop the story and cross the lines drawn by biography, trying to understand the magic interaction between a cinematographer and a director, between the cinematographer and the object in front of his camera.
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.
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.
John Dored was the first Latvian cinematographer to train with the famous Pathé, actively film on the front lines of WWI, and the only foreigner who filmed Lenin’s funeral, illegally. After emigrating to the U.S.A. he worked as a correspondent for Paramount News for 25 years and continued reporting from war zones. The film is based on the correspondence and journals of Dored and his wife Elizabeth – a portrait of a stellar career and of fate, love, life and death.
Near the end of the Second World War, when it became clear that Latvia would be re-invaded by the Soviet Army, some 150,000 of its citizens fled to Germany as refugees. Among them were farmers, businessmen, government officials, intellectuals and ordinary folks who had already experienced the dreadful Year of Terror. Almost one million people from Eastern Europe sought escape from the Soviet regime. The Latvians, who became DPs (displaced persons), tried to create a “little Latvia” within the confines of the refugee camps. This film follows the fates of their children.
A documentary about Latvian freedom fighter Konstantīns Čakste who was the son of the first Latvian president and who perished in 1945.
