Sisters Ernesta and Justė, along with their husbands Lukas and Tomas, gather at their parents’ summer house. It’s been a while since they’ve all been together and the children are delighted to be spending the last warm days by the lake. But an intense weekend soon unravels, thrusting both families into a radically altered reality where time is limited and emotional issues must be solved amidst growing heartache.
A runaway bride, a young peasant, mysterious illusionists and a manic investigator become entwined in a murderous affair at a Baltic German baron's manor.
Self-proclaimed cryptocurrency expert Fatso is a middle-aged curmudgeon frittering away his days with video games and conspiracy theory videos. Obsessed with the concept of eternal life since childhood, Fatso experiments with various quack theories in the hopes of becoming immortal, despite his miserablism. When Egons and Carlos inexplicably appear outside of his remote woodland trailer, asking for an invitation inside, they bring glad tidings that he has recently been selected as “the chosen one.” Appealing to his nature as a “cowardly, passive, antisocial sluggard,” who has squandered his humanity so thoroughly that the transition to undead would prove practically seamless, the friendly duo make promises of a new, more fulfilling life as a vampire.
Anastasia is 13 and her sister Diana is 11. The two sisters live in a Latvian orphanage. When they find out that an American family is ready to adopt them, Diana cannot wait to move to the States, while Anastasia is less excited about the idea of leaving her home.
When Gerda was two, her parents left her in Latvia while they went to work in Ireland. These experiences and memories still haunt Gerda, so she is looking for young people with similar childhood experiences to share, listen and have the courage to talk to their parents about a time that had an irreversible impact on their lives.
A documentary about a 78-year-old Indian woman in New York who is the world's most passionate theatergoer. Nicki Cochrane has been seeing a play every day for more than 25 years, acquiring free tickets using a variety of ingenious means.
Laine is a college girl from a bland middle-class suburb in Latvia. As Laine’s father distances himself from his crumbling marriage and his family, Laine is unable to cope with the separation and discovers the edgy Riga party scene, where she falls in love with seasoned raver Gunda. Going from rave to rave, the girls journey into a drug-fuelled underworld of anarchy, freedom and exploration.
Through the prism of three distinct characters, the 24-year-old director conveys an intimate and sensitive portrait of his own generation, wanderers looking for their place in the new and uncertain world. Dancer Tanya moves to Mississippi where she finds love with a paraplegic wheelchair basketball trainer who is more than 20 years her senior. App developer Tomass abandons the life he had before and becomes a world-travelling digital nomad. Avant-garde publisher Valters collects toilet seats in a poetically performative attempt to overcome past trauma.
Although Nauris could use a tractor from his partner in crime, thief Andrejs, Nauris dreams of his own tractor. Two ordinary country men go to the usual scrap metal stealing endeavors until they drink too much, initiating a dispute that turns into a brutal murder and a struggle for survival. The film is based on real events.
In one long take lasting nearly an hour and a half, three well-known Latvian actors re-stage scenes from renowned Soviet Latvian movies made under the Riga Film Studio. As they progress from film to film, their re-enactments lead them to discover the undeniably funny personalities and unbelievable circumstances under which these films were made. Blending documentary, theatre and fiction film, this is a comedy about the cinema and the actor, and a heartfelt homage to the Riga Film Studio.
A young Latvian boy's life faces changes as his country is occupied by the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.
Two teenage girls, Yin Jia and Tong Tong, live together in this colour-drenched vision of Changsha, China. When Tong Tong drifts away and falls in with a drug dealer, Yin Jia’s love for her means she’ll risk everything to keep Tong Tong by her side.
This is an intimate and personal story about women who were supposed to be the children of complete and total socialism, about the environment they grew up in, their youth and their life now. Teacher Lapaine’s class reunion happens every year on March 21. This year is no different. Just like 25 years ago, when director Una Celma first documented her classmates in a film under the same title. The traditional table is set with beverages, cakes and candy, and the yearly photo taken. Nowadays, they are mothers, aunts and grandmothers. Their fates have changed, but what about themselves?
There is a moment in the lives of emperors, which follows pride in the boundless extension of the territories we have conquered, and the melancholy and relief of knowing we shall soon give up any thought of knowing and understanding them.
A dreamlike cinematic collage exploring the life, times and choices of the Russian avant-garde theatermaker Vsevolod Meyerhold. An innovative artist becomes a tool in the hands of the socialist revolution.
An investigative look at the life of Latvia’s first foreign minister Zigfrids Anna Meierovics is also a chronicle of the inception of the statehood of Latvia. In a time of deep political turmoil, one man had to make the choices and sacrifices necessary to achieve the legitimacy of an entire country.
What happens in the eyes of a 100-year-old filmmaker? Rolands Kalniņš, one of the great masters of Latvian cinema, sits down to have his photo taken and looks straight in the lens. Kalniņš’ life has spanned an authoritarian regime, a world war, long years under Soviet occupation and censorship, and retirement in independent Latvia. His films have been censored, destroyed, found and restored. But here, like Herz Frank once did with a child, for ten minutes we shall observe the micro-emotions of a man who has dedicated his life to film. Confronted directly by the tool of his trade, the camera. As we face Kalniņš eye to eye, we hear the sounds of his present, and the memories of his past.
A problem that every film director has faced – how do you film something that does not exist? A director is making a documentary about an actor and his stalker – but the stalker never appears. As the deadline approaches, unusual steps must be taken.
An investigative journalist decides to take down an esoteric organization based around the implementation of structured water.
After his mother’s death, Dzintars Bumbiers (34) struggles with the large collection of dahlias he has inherited. Dzintars made a promise that he would keep the garden. How-ever, the reality strikes with new challenges and the dahlias hide his contempt. Dzintars considers the commitment to the dahlias is the reason his mother left her sons aside as they were growing up. As a result, two of his brothers have died, one is in prison, while Dzintars was bullied as a child and can’t start relationships with women.
