Ivars Seleckis

The film "Kino diena" (Cinema Day) is a meeting with two documentary filmmakers and life partners, Ivars and Maija Seleckis, for "the length of a single film screening," reviewing the films they have made together and attempting to articulate the phenomenon of the Riga documentary film school and the essence of the documentary filmmaker's profession, which is difficult to express in words.

This is the 3rd film in almost 30 years about the daily lives of the people living in this small street of Pārdaugava. We first met them in the late 1980s when the Soviet Union was on the brink of collapse. We visited them again in the wild 1990s. And now we meet them in 2013, again in a whole different world.

In the Latvian countryside at the end of the 19th century, Jānis decides it is time to find a wife—but choosing the right one proves no easy task. Pretending to have gone deaf after listening to church bells from the bell tower, he visits the surrounding farms and overhears conversations never meant for his ears. While others reveal their true characters, only Ilze, the blacksmith’s sister, shows genuine concern and wonders how the unfortunate young man might be cured.

Zolitude is inhabited mainly by immigrants. An extremely denational environment, a disorderly everyday life, depressing standard type architecture - these are the problems faced by the film's characters.

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.

At the beginning of the 1960s, when the French pioneers of cinéma vérité set out to achieve a new realism, and when direct cinema in Québec began to vie for notice, the Baltics wit-nessed the birth of a generation of documentarists who favored a more romantic view of the world around them. This meditative documentary essay – from a Latvian writer and Lithuanian director whose composed touch has long dovetailed with the stylistically diverse works of the Baltic New Wave – pushes adroitly past the limits of the common his-toriographic investigation to create a portrait of less-clearly remembered filmmakers. The result is a consummate poetic treatment of the ontology of documentary creation. Also a cinematic poem about cinema poets.

No description available.

A documentary about farmers in Latvian countryside.

The To Be Continued documentary follows lives of five children throughout their first school year. Kārlis's family is firmly rooted in the Latvian countryside. Gleb's grandparents came to Latvia only in the Soviet period. Zane's family are first-generation urban-dwellers. Anastasija's family moved from the city to the countryside. Anete's mum lives and works in England. The film explores how these choices made by adults are reflected in a child's thinking.

Five children started school in different parts of Latvia in 2015 and we followed them through their first schoolyear in the 2018 documentary “To be continued”. Now 14 years old, they are halfway to adulthood. Some have matured, some seem to be still lingering in childhood. Zane has traded her dream of a singing career for her passion for the basketball. Gleb fights in the boxing ring and puts his business talent to good use by selling rulers in class. Anastasia from Stoļerova in the Rezekne region rides horses and learns not to give up. Anete's mother has returned from England and they are now living in Riga and Anete now has a little brother. Kārlis, from Vidzeme, is still fascinated by tractors but now sows fields in a virtual computer game.

On his 18th birthday, Māris receives a motorcycle from his parents, and, while driving around with his friends, they pass a wedding car. The bride, Inese, is entering a loveless marriage, so she allows Māris to steal her from the wedding reception.

The degradation of a human under the influence of alcohol.

A documentary about farmers in the Latvian countryside.

No description available.

The story of rural people in 2004 - at the time when Latvia joined the European Union. A thorough study of the situation in rural Latvia over the course of the last thirty years, where the conflict between the familiar and the new, and desire and opportunity has fostered creative thinking in farmers looking to be masters of their own land. In the film we see a German farmer who bought property in Latvia; the head of a large parish; a family of young former citizens; eco lifestyle supporters - soybean growers, including an organic farm and its owner who takes a loan from a bank for the first time.

Ten years have passed since we made the film “Crossroad Street”, about a small street in the suburbs of the city of Riga. Now we’ve come back. Perhaps it was a sense of duty, perhaps nostalgia that brought us back – who knows? Perhaps it was both. Daiga, Aldis, Osis – they’re all our people. The first film had an impact on both the filmmakers and the residents of Crossroad Street. We found friends whom we want to meet again and again. Society has become more prosperous, several value systems coexist side-by-side. People often live in these systems as though they were in different worlds that never meet. We felt that the world inhabited by our people is sinking into oblivion, and so we wanted to show that it still has its own turbulence, that Crossroad Street resembles Latvia’s palm – the place where a fortune teller can see the lines of its destiny.

The composer Raimonds Pauls, the artist of the USSR People's Stage, shares his thoughts on life and work. The authors focus on the difficult daily work of a talented artist.

A protopoetic short about Riga and the people of Riga in their twenties.

People gather in the woods to learn about cameras

A poetic documentary observation of everyday life in a Latvian fishing village, where centuries-old traditions and wind-hardened men and women live alongside the optimism of new construction and the smiling faces of the new generation.