Ance Strazda

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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.

New performers have recently moved into the 130-year-old building of the Riga Circus. Having built a stage in the stables, actors Ance, Āris, Klāvs, Reinis and the other members of the theatre company Kvadrifrons are reinvigorating and preserving the tradition of live art in the circus. The name of the group is an acronym in Latvian that conveys their ethos: they are an organisation that can chill with their friends, have bursts of amazing creativity, and whose members are far from unintelligent. And all the while, the strong smell of elephants wafts through the building. Here and there, the life of the previous inhabitants makes itself known. Soon shamanistic rituals alternate with clowning around, fortune-telling with illusion juggling, stagecraft with personal choices. Then suddenly, out of Nothing… emerges Theatre.

After a skateboarding accident, Hugo (13) develops magical superpowers. He quickly becomes the coolest kid in school but now has to choose between status and friendship.

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.

When the daughter of the Sun and the Moon is stolen, desperate parents call people to get their baby back. Helpers are given only three days: if at that time, the Sun's daughter will not be found, she will lose her strength and become an ordinary girl. A journey of danger and adventure, which teaches everyone not only to be brave and resourceful, but also helpful. The Latvian animated film is based on folklore motifs.

A small town teenage girl Meldra, aspiring to be a writer, heads to Riga in hope to find Rihards, a famous poet, with whom she has fallen in love. She gets carried away by the turbulent life of the capital. While breaking all of her suburban standards, she loses many of her illusions and becomes courageous enough to make her own decisions.

The story of what we would do if we were given another chance to see our lost loved ones, even if only for a few minutes. One of the film's characters, Viktor, is given this opportunity, and he goes to see his wife. This is not a horror film or fantasy, but a drama about the human weaknesses that we all possess.

The State Electrotechnical Factory's cultural palace, or vefiņš, was opened on March 1, 1960, and was allocated for the factory's needs. However, today science has been banished from these walls. Alongside the brightest local pop artists, countless feet and legs dressed in pastels tread the boards of this stage every year to determine which group will take center stage at the Daugava Stadium during the Song and Dance Festival. Meanwhile, the young, promising and provocative documentary filmmaker Ingmārs Somis has come here to make a film about the "other side" of folk dancing on stage - about nationalistic programming, worn-out feet, sunburn and blouses tucked into underpants. He has decided to expose the teachers, lecture the parents, liberate the dancers, destroy the VEF cultural palace, get hold of the Great Kristaps and enter the Latvian cultural canon.