Acting
1889: the five remaining vampire clans in Europe are training to survive. In their midst is 14-year-old Alisa who has the power to choose between eternal life as a vampire or for all vampires to live as humans.
The story of middle-aged Japanese woman Keiko, who has been living in a shell for decades due to a family tragedy in Kobe. The modest act of eating and the sensations it gives us provided Keiko a lifeline to survive. Unwillingly, she joins a group of Japanese women traveling to Northern Europe to participate in a kimono show in the fairytale-like art nouveau world of Riga. During her performance, Keiko suddenly comes face to face with her husband, who disappeared twenty years ago and now wants to read-dress their relationship and who Keiko has become.
In the late 1970s – at a time when the fiercest propaganda against Western culture was being waged throughout the USSR – an ardent rock and roll fan sets up a successful and illegal underground jeans factory in a Latvian psychiatric hospital.
The 14th of June 1941, Soviet-occupied Latvia. Without warning, the authorities break into the house of Melanie and her husband Alexander, and force them to leave everything behind. Together with more than 15 000 Latvians, Melanie and her son get deported to Siberia. In her fight against cold, famine and cruelty, she only gains new strength through the letters she writes to Alexander, full of hope for a free Latvia and a better tomorrow.
A Latvian series shot by the team at Jaunais Rīgas Teātris / New Riga Theatre over the course of summer 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic. It's a story about a world that once again changes rapidly. About the belief that everything on this planet is subject to manipulation. The series centers around an advertising agency - a classic office where professionalism mixes with boredom, romance and an existential tiredness.
The love story of sixteen-year-old Arturs is interrupted by the First World War. After losing his mother and his home, he finds some consolation in joining the army, because this is the first time national battalions are allowed in the Russian Empire. But war is nothing like Arturs imagined – no glory, no fairness. It is brutal and painful. Arturs is now completely alone as war takes the lives of his father and brother. Also, no progress is made in the promised quick resolution of the war and timely return home. Within the notion that only he alone cares about returning home and that his homeland is just a playground for other nations, Arturs finds strength for the final battle and eventually returns home to start everything from scratch, just like his newly born country.
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.
While the whole world is overwhelmed by revolutions of different shades, the leading tandem of the Small Theater - Ivars and Armands is working on a new historical play set in 18th century France called ‘Revolution’. A week before the premiere the favorite of audiences and critics Armands receives a tempting offer to pursue his career at the Grand Theater. Betrayed by his best friend, Ivars gradually loses touch with reality. Themes of the play ‘Revolution’ starts to intertwine with Ivars personal life until he becomes unable to distinguish truth from fiction and that brings the Small Theater closer to an inevitable catastrophe - the act of terrorism at the evening of the premiere.
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.
They met on Christmas Eve, beyond one's usual living-space: at the morgue. In an outburst of feelings, they try to manipulate each other in order to get what they want. She wants him, but he wants to vanish – following the rules of black comedy, neither one of them will get anything.
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.
"16+" centers on a group of four friends – Māra, Mārtiņš, Edgars, and Pauls, who study in the same class. As the new school year begins, two girls – Laura and Amanda – join the class, whose arrival and attitude shake up the seemingly stable friendship. A series of events begins, in which everyone is drawn into it, and it is clear that no one will get out of it easily.
The film follows a ten-year-old boy whom everyone calls Bunny. He is emotional and reserved, and he spends most of his days playing with his only friend Edvards. Bunny’s life is shaken by his Mom’s new boyfriend Juris. The film depicts the pre-puberty boys’ awkward understanding of sexual intercourse and also tells the story of the relationship between a single mother and her son, seeking for a way to turn an uncomfortable experience into an opportunity to mature.
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?
In a cabin in the woods, an eerily pale woman holds a mysterious casket, a dark liquid dripping from her fingers. Inside a car wash, a driver looks for dead ones on his tablet. What’s the connection between them?
Billy Joe lives in a small town and his biggest dream is to become a famous country musician. All he wants is to participate in the Bauska Country Festival, forgetting about the needs of his girlfriend and reality as such.
After hearing many success stories about direct sales companies, Roberts decides to try his luck in selling vacuum cleaners door to door. On the first work day he finds out about the possible bonus in case of at least 2 successfully closed sales deals. At a glance the task seems quite easy. Once Robert faces the reality in a block of flats and encounters its peculiar inhabitants, the task no longer seems to be so simple.
A bureaucrat who has just declared himself as a new political force has disappeared… in a canteen; police are investigating. Combining the absurd and black humour, a harsh and ironic reflection on civil servants, cops, and contemporary art.
A young man - Rens arrives to the apartment building in microdistrict. Shutting himself off from the world around him, he settles in one of the apartments in the house, which only has a television and a collection of videotapes. Spending his days in the secluded environment, his only "guests" are the neighbor-woman in the opposite window of the house, the food delivery girl Mon and a dark being whose rare visits are unpredictable and yet closely related to the "burdens" the young man brought with him from the past. Over time, trust and affection for the not- so-talkative food delivery girl grows, and the connection between the apparitions in the apartment and Ren's guests becomes more and more obvious. The real begins to merge with the unreal, the stroboscopic fragmentaryness of consciousness drives Ren into a corner and he is forced to find a solution.
The time for the annual great graveyard celebration is approaching in a small town. Scientist Laila can’t attend it alone this year. She has to make a choice.
