Directing
This documentary explores the historical and emotional significance of the Staburags cliff, combining personal memories, archival footage, photographs, and contemporary landscapes. Through people’s testimonies and visual material, viewers are invited to reflect on whether it is possible to reclaim what time and water have washed away. Once one of Latvia’s most popular sightseeing spots, Staburags has been widely celebrated in legends, folktales, and songs. Audiences will have the opportunity to see rare footage filmed 40 meters below the surface of the Daugava River, as well as follow a modern expedition during which special equipment was used to check whether the 18–20 meter-high Staburags cliff still remains in its place.
Brainstorm is the best-known Latvian band in Europe. They started out 25 years ago, when most of them were in the same class at school. That was the time when people in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia joined hands to create the Baltic Way, and the fall of the Berlin Wall became a symbol of the hunger for freedom. The young men listened to U2, the Scorpions and Roxette and dreamed of becoming famous. Now Brainstorm is famous in Russia as well. The musicians are Latvians who live in Latvia, but they reap profits in Russia. Brainstorm has experienced the most interesting and intense period of modern European history. This period has also been a dramatic time for the band itself.
A film about a unique personality with an unbreakable spirit – Gunārs Astra. He can be considered as Latvian Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn or Václav Havel. Twenty years he spent in Soviet prisons because of anti-government thinking. In a 1983 trial by the Latvian SSR, Astra said, “I believe this time will fade like an evil nightmare.” The fate of Gunārs Astra himself was tragic. Like Alexei Navalny in Russia, Astra was poisoned with tea on a train to Saint Petersburg. A week later, Gunārs Astra died. Astra’s death became a symbol of light on the long road to the restoration of Latvia’s independence.
The end of the 1970s. The Soviet Union is in a state of stagnation and apathy during the Brezhnev era. Ethnic and social tensions are simmering. An armed group of young people appears in Latvia, wanting to fight Soviet rule using guerrilla tactics. They blow up railways, carry out armed attacks, and intimidate KGB informants. The most daring plan of the young people is to track down and kidnap Augusts Voss, the leader of the Communist Party of the Latvian SSR at the time. The USSR State Security Committee called them the Zilberts gang. How should we evaluate the activities of a group whose actions, both then and now, can be considered criminal offenses? Bandits or partisans? This case goes beyond the bounds of conformity and nonviolent resistance, which is precisely why we decided to tell its story.
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.
On the night of August 18, 1991, a coup, or putsch, was attempted in Moscow. The coup threatened to return the Baltic States to the occupation of Soviet Union. This documentary tells the story of how the event unfolded in Latvia.
Amid the collapse of the Soviet Union 30 years ago, the Baltic nations fought to regain their independence and freedom, while die-hard believers in the Soviet empire saw ways to force them back under Moscow's control. In order to protect their reborn state, the Latvian people began to build barricades in the center of Rīga. Unique footage and previously unheard historical evidence contributes to the documentary film “The Fortress of the Nation. 30 Years since the Barricades" from Latvian Television.
This documentary is about singer Larisa Mondrus, whose musical career and life story are unique. In the 1960s, Larisa's voice was first heard in occupied Latvia, and then, when her family moved to Moscow, she became famous throughout the Soviet Union. In the 1970s, Larisa Mondrusa fell out of favor with Soviet cultural officials and managed to emigrate to the Federal Republic of Germany, where she surprisingly built a brilliant career on the German pop music scene. Larisa's songs in Latvian also gained enormous popularity in Latvia, behind the Iron Curtain. People listened to Larisa, as well as the Chicago Five, Ilmārs Dzenis, and others, on illegally imported records and widely distributed recordings. The filmmakers met with Larisa Mondrus, her partner Egīls Švarcs in Germany, and interviewed Larisa's contemporaries and stage colleagues.
