Laima Slava

Latvian painter Boriss Bērziņš talks about life and art in his workshop. A documentary that was awarded "Lielais Kristaps" for best debut.

At the end of 70ies, when individual houses were getting destroyed in the Latvian countryside to put everyone in Soviet kolkhozs, painters Inta Celmiņa and Edvards Grūbe bought a house in Vidzeme, far away from everybody. It was a new beginning for the house, and for the artists as well, who now lead a double life, spending winters in Riga, and summers - in their workshop in the countryside. It's a story about the classic values of Latvian painting and the environment that breeds it.

The film tells the story of A. Bikše's object "1/10 of Mother Earth's Office" in the Great Cemetery, the oldest cemetery in Riga. After its closure, there were plans to create a park here, but at present it looks like a place abandoned to fate, used mainly by drunkards, mothers with prams and dogs. A confrontation between the opinions of cultural critic P. Bankovskis and artist A. Bikše on the fate of the cemetery, the contemporary meaning of art, and the creation of the art object itself.