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From true events to total fantasy. From comedy to horror. Latvian Song and Dance Festival Celebration in the vision of six Latvian directors.
Several very different characters – a pioneering physicist, an acclaimed minimalist composer, an intensive care doctor and a crematorium director – each in their own way find a strikingly similar answer to the cliché question: what is the universe made of? According to them, the ultimate source of reality is essentially empty space, which spontaneously manifests what we call matter in a magical display.
It is a hot summer day and the Song Festival rehearsal is underway for the kokle ensemble. The exhausting rehearsal is enlivened by the arrival of percussionist Reinis. The ensemble's soloist Zane feels that this fateful encounter strikes not only the strings of the kokle, but also the strings of her heart. After the rehearsal, at the school where everyone is staying overnight, Zane realizes that her instrument is missing. It is the eve of the concert, and in the morning they must go to the final grand concert. She asks Reinis for help, as he is the last person to have seen the instrument. As the two wander through the school's dark corridors, it begins to seem that perhaps they will find more than just the lost kokle.
Over the past year, three young scientists have found unusual colored frogs in the wild in Latvia that are not typical for our region. A green frog with unusual orange and black coloring—seen for the first time—as well as a strange red frog. Scientists are trying to determine the cause – whether these are "natural errors" in a few specimens, or whether the entire frog population is affected – with environmental pollution being cited as one of the reasons. In a parallel story the scientists are conducting research on the restored tree frog population, observing the results of a project implemented in the 1990s – at that time, the extinct tree frog species was successfully restored and is once again found on the Kurzeme coast.
Suffering from insomnia, Arta develops a hobby of collecting pictures of other people sleeping. One night the girl accidentally locks herself out of the house and is forced to spend the night in the streets, dressed in pyjamas.
Astronomers look through telescopes and see that the universe has a structure — it’s shaped like a web. Slime mold researchers look through microscopes and see that the tiny organisms form similar patterns. In their quest of discovering the nature of things, they both show the beauty of curiosity.
Forgotten and, perhaps, unheard Latvian myths and ghost stories.
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A glimpse into the past and present of a one's episodic quest to grasp authenticity under imaginary circumstances.
Anatols Imermanis was a Latvian crime writer and a poet during Soviet occupation. He could call himself a successful, financially stable soviet writer. But he wanted more – to be free. The free West, especially Paris, was a life-long dream for Imermanis, but he was never allowed to leave the Soviet Union. So he created his own personal Paris – a bohemian lifestyle, sexual freedom, ignoring all puritan norms of the soviet world. He died alone without fulfilling his dream about Paris. But death was not a reason to give up – his last will was to be cremated and his ashes to be dispersed in Paris red light quarters.
Fighting as a partisan in the mythical Baltic past and in wars in 20th century Eastern Europe at the same time, Baņuta’s life is saved by weary and disenchanted Lithuanian prince, Daumants. Speeding away on a motorcycle, he brings the fighter back to his homeland in Romove, a holy Baltic site. There is about to be a wedding, but the preparations are interrupted by ravens. Their black feathers are a mirror for Daumants’ conscience and act as a reminder of his crime against Jargala, a girl he raped and killed. Soon Daumants falls in battle, and being a stranger in Romove, Baņuta is caught up in sacrificial rituals and revenge. However, she is strong-willed and will not bow to fate – no one will take her happiness away. A hundred years after the premiere of Alfrēds Kalniņš’ first Latvian opera Baņuta in 1920, comes the opera film Baņuta – an international project that melds opera, musical performances, the conditionality of the performing arts and contemporary performativity.
Two girls on holiday find a diary in an abandoned boat and set out to investigage a mysterious light on the horizon.
Spring 2021. A cinephile invites you on an intimate trip through the last surviving cinema houses in Latvia. This documentary essay, shot on super 8mm, opens the locked doors to picture houses during a Covid-19 lockdown, perhaps the most difficult time in the history of physical cinema space.
Standing near the reptile section in a zoo we can learn a lot about the animals on both sides of the separating glass.
The story of Marģers Vestermanis is special since he is one of the few Holocaust survivors in Latvia. Can you live a full and targeted life after your family has been murdered but you have undergone through ghetto and concentration camp? Not everyone has managed – many remained trapped in the past and were not able to find the strength of living on. If you asked Marģers Vestermanis, he would most probably say that there was no other choice for him. However, this film is not only a story about Marģers Vestermanis who survived Holocaust. This is a story about man's place after surviving a tragedy, about how it changes him and the ones around him. And it is also a story about us.
The family from the 4th floor are reasonably sane people. Krists is a brash teenager who lives in his dreams more than in real world and has a keen interest in the neighbor girl Unda. Ineta, Krist's mother, is a moderately hysteical being, a primary school teacher who devotes all her awake hours to obsessively watching shows on TV. The tranquil balance of this family is disrupted one night when it turns out Krist's world of sleepwalking has began to endanger the life in awake.
A brilliant but misguided man feels that he has the right to decide who is worth their place on earth.
How does it feel to be old? The characters in this film have passed their 80th birthdays, but their age doesn’t define them. Instead, they are defined by their attitude towards life and aging. Still very positive, active and with sharp minds, four inspiring seniors from Latvia continue doing things that excite them despite the physical and other challenges that accompany their years.
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.
Emeri comes across a map from her childhood - a map that marks the location of a time capsule buried 19 years earlier - and memories come rushing back.
