Dinārs
Dinārs is a Latvian schlager singer popular with the ladies and known for his big cat mane. The eponymous film follows his path over a turbulent season of work.
Dinārs
2020
0
Six theater and hip hop teachers take on a five month challenge to show the Latvian public that young men behind bars are more than just that. While seeming impatient, full of disbelief and even rude at first, it turns out to be a superficial impression given off by their masks that must be kept on at all time as an underage colony is a difficult place to be. It has its own rules and it’s not easy being creative there. Teachers help inmates reveal the talents within them that help transcending the monotony of the prison walls.
Dinārs is a Latvian schlager singer popular with the ladies and known for his big cat mane. The eponymous film follows his path over a turbulent season of work.
Dinārs
2020
0
An attempt to understand the people chanting "Atlaist Saeimu!" (Sack the parliament!) year after year. Though rarely attracting a great deal of notice, there are always individuals collecting signatures for a referendum to dissolve the parliament for one reason or another, or simply standing outside the building and reciting their familiar mantra. Latvian governments change fairly often, but the parliament has been dissolved in line wth the Constitution only once, in 2010 (in 1934 it was dissolved unconstitutionally following a coup by Prime Minister Kārlis Ulmanis). The actual parliament building in Old Rīga was, however, attacked in January 2009 during a very rare violent protest which precipitated the fall of Ivars Godmanis' cabinet. The documentary zips back and forth in time giving portraits of various different people and political forces pushing the idea to "Atlaist Saeimu" for different reasons.
Nesaprastie
2020
0
The documentary “Residents” probes problems in Latvia in general and Latvia’s medicine in particular with the story of two energetic young interns, Kārlis and Laura.
Rezidenti
2017
0
As her adolescence gives way to the obligations of motherhood, troubled Gemma matures in Motherwell, her Scottish hometown, heavily dependent on the steel industry. Unfortunately for her, her hedonistic way of understanding the world does not fit in with the philosophy of the rest of the villagers, so trouble soon follows.
Scheme Birds
2019
6
The never-before-told story of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love – a spiritual group of surfers and hippies in Southern California that became the largest suppliers of psychedelic drugs in the world during the 1960s and early 1970s. Bonded by their dreams to fight social injustice and spread peace, this unlikely band of free-spirited idealists quickly transformed into a drug-smuggling empire and at the same time inadvertently invented the modern illegal drug trade. At the head of the Brotherhood, and the heart of this story, is the anti-capitalistic husband and wife team, who made it their mission to change the world through LSD.
Orange Sunshine
2016
6
A portrait of a group of youngsters in Agger at the west coast of Jutland. They listen to the raw metalrock. They dress in leather and rivets. And that doesn't exactly lessen the generational divide.
Heavy Agger
1986
0
“Hike '44" is a personal story by director Lauris Abele and cinematographer Marcis Abele about how to maintain humanity when the world falls apart. The protagonist of the film, Melita Abele (89), retraces her refugee path from 1944, when, at the age of 14, she had to leave her home at the beginning of winter. Asking strangers for shelter, spend nights in the woods until she found refuge and warm hearts. Through the use of animation, the viewer will be guided through Melita's memories on a journey through recent and present-day Latvia until a series of events brings Melita to what she has been trying to accomplish for 75 years.
Pārgājiens '44
2019
0
A story of a Latvian family making tentative plans to return to Latvia. Ģirts, a doctor working in Denmark for nine years, receives an invitation to set up a professional practice back in Latvia – a welcome opportunity, as he would like to look after his parents better. But things aren't as simple as that, and his family is divided over the issue.
Pa vidu
2020
0
Two Rigans - Valentīna and Armands - make makeshift yard exhibitions by their homes out of objects they’ve found. They share the same hobby despite not knowing each other. As they’re decorating their little gardens of wonder for the upcoming Midsummer festival, it turns out that they too can find understanding and a sense of not being alone in their dreams.
Lai smuki!
2016
0
A film documenting contemporary Latvian reality along the banks of the river Gauja while channelling one of the first Latvian sound documentary films, Gauja (1934). “Along with producers Sandijs Semjonovs and Gundars Rēders and editor Atis Klimovičs, we witnessed incidents and events along the banks of the river some 80 years later. We captured them along with the views of folks on this river in a documentally poetic style reflecting the reality in Latvia,” explains director Mārtiņš Grauds.
Gauja. Divreiz vienā upē
2013
0
Vārdotājas (Wordsmiths) traces the recent rise of women's stand-up comedy in Latvia, but it is by no means just for laughs. Feelings of discomfort, shame, shock, are just some of the subjects tackled.
Vārdotājas
2019
0
"If a person doesn't go to church anymore, then the church should go to them," says Rinalds, a calm, smiling, young man with a good sense of humor. He is a priest from a small village in Latgale, Latvia's easternmost and poorest region, and the documentary Prīsters (The Priest) follows the routines of his daily life, his thoughts of life and religion and why he chose this path for himself.
Prīsters
2019
0
In this film a young man and his curmudgeonly grandfather are going 1,800 km to northern Russia in an old Zhiguli car, hoping to find the grave of their great-grandfather, who was deported. The grandfather Andris is sceptic over the lofty quest, initiated by his grand-son, as it’s not known what awaits them at their destination. Andris thinks they won’t find anything and will come back to Latvia without ever learning what happened to his father. However ever-optimistic Kārlis wants to use the journey not only to find answers about the past but also become closer to his grandfather who raised him. They both lost their parents as children.
Vectēva tēvs
2016
0
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.
Cukurvate, degunlāči un monocikls
2014
0
The documentary explores issues of beauty and acceptance in a culture increasingly saturated with idealised and unattainable ideals of femininity. It is a story about the world of young girls in today's Latvia, based on conversations about girls' attitudes towards the world and their place in it.
Skaistai būt
2019
0
This is the ultra rare Sham 69 Documentary which features a drama using the 'That's Life' album. Filmed for BBC Arena in 1979.
Sham 69: Tell Us The Truth
1979
0
After receiving an edict from the municipal authorities about the closing of their school, the students at Mežvidi primary school continue to attend lessons and exercise creativity and fun, but it’s all clouded in a sense of fatality. They aren’t many students, and because of that the school resembles a large family rather than an institution. Near the Russian border, deep in the Latgale region, this place will become a nowhere-land once the youth depart. In an intimate message about a national problem, the story focuses on three sisters for whom life is about to drastically change. Through their daily lives and small adventures we try to understand the real meaning of the contention that “the countryside is dying”. And we see hope.
Pēdējais zvans
2014
0
This film probes the activities of the bezvests.lv NGO that looks for missing persons and instructs others on how to find them. Since they started in 2009, they’ve helped find more than 90 people who had gone missing. It follows volunteers during training and on a search mission – theirs is a nerve-wracking task as in many cases they only locate the expired body of the missing person.
Meklētāji
2017
0
Prayer for a Home shows how everyone needs shelter and a home – people in Latvia, Europe and troubled regions throughout the world. The film relates the story of the distinguished Latgalian poet Anna Rancāne and her family – her daughter Terēze, her grandson Daniel, and Daniel’s father, Dara Muhammad Ali – who are trying to stick together despite unfortunate circumstances. Even though Terēze and Anna are Catholic, while Dara is a Muslim from Kurdistan, their love transcends religious, national and cultural prejudice. However, due to circumstances beyond their control, the family is not destined to remain together, despite doing everything they can to stay close.
Lūgšana mājai
2015
0
There is a Man, called Mitrais by locals, who is one of the first professional nature inspectors in Latvia. For an older generation people his name is associated with an image of a real ranger, while youngsters who know him highly respect him. Mitrais is sure that among today’s youth there are more idealists than ever before. And they are ready to do something real and tangible, and not surrender to the overwhelming virtual pseudo-reality.
Mitrais
2013
0