II Lines

The story of the world-renowned Liepāja-born cinematographer Eduard Tisse, whose wife was convinced it was he who created all the famous films of Sergei Eisenstein. The creators of the film develop the story and cross the lines drawn by biography, trying to understand the magic interaction between a cinematographer and a director, between the cinematographer and the object in front of his camera.

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.

The creative documentary tells a story about the piano player and musician Oscar Strock who was a well known tango music composer in the 1920s Europe. Nobody knew him – only his music was well known. The life of Strock is like a side-show of everlasting debts, long voyages and wild and unlucky love affairs that find their best interpretation through his tango music. The piano player is a man, who barely arranges his life according to the political and economic circumstances in the world. To earn money, he plays for pubs and cinema theatres in Riga, Berlin and Paris, and for lovers, he writes the most romantic tango music.

Lost in remotest part of Eastern Europe, Sam is a foreigner, searching for his biological father Lagzdins where a minor road accident leads to a chance meeting with a pig-farmer's daughter, who captures him and makes him a forced laborer on the farm.

A nightmarish evening unfolds for neighbors David and Robert when they accidentally hit a woman on her bike and flee the scene. While David is increasingly plagued by feelings of guilt, Robert shows no remorse and becomes overbearing and possessive.

During late 1950s in Venezuela, nine-year-old Elizabeth’s summer break takes a wild turn when her little brother Leo vanishes into the jungle. She must swap her books for bravery not only to find her brother but also to rescue a mystical furry animal from captivity and bring him back up to the legendary Tepui mountain.

The film dramatizes November 11, 1919- a crucial date in the battle for Latvian independence. A year after the end of the official hostilities of WWI, a renegade German general and troops remain outside the Latvian capital. Latvian riflemen, most of them inexperienced volunteers, somehow managed to defeat a larger, better-armed force of German and Russian mercenaries.

Riga in the 30s. Wild bohemian lifestyle is the name of the game for every artist worth his salt. A young man from the countryside, poor but ambitious, arrives in the capital, where he hopes to make his mark in the artistic circles. What follows is a string of events, fraught with confusion and misunderstanding, hilarious and heart-warming at the same time.

A comedy about sex, love, relationships, and taboo. In a multi-story narrative, we peer behind the closed doors of a seemingly normal city.

Liv's estranged alcoholic dad is about to die. The doctors at the hospital make no sense. Her boyfriend is about to have a midlife crisis. Her washing machine is broken. She thinks she'll be fine as these are regular adult problems. Spoiler alert: she won't.

A young director, who sits in front of a commission defending a film based on her own experiences with sex and relationships, is continually confronted with questions about why she’s making the movie. The answer doesn’t come easy… Linde took on a difficult task for her short film.

A teenager travels to the capital city to spend the evening with a significantly older man in his elegant apartment. The conversations are empty, meaningless, yet an unspoken agreement lingers between them. The night passes in silence, where the line between choice and submission becomes increasingly blurred. In the morning, the boy leaves — with a lingering sense of guilt and regret.

A melancholic view facing a mirror of water. It deceives the film’s protagonist, who wallows in longing and memories of his lost lover. The water here takes on the shape of a tear, a trickle through fallen leaves, the volume of a drink left undrunk in a bar, and the beauty of an oasis. Perhaps the unfortunate creature should follow the water, so that his beloved can be reborn?

Trying to make a professional impression, the teacher of the 9th grade Dārta organises a parents' school meeting, but the parents' childish behaviour turns the gathering into a disaster, becoming the biggest challenge of Dārta's career so far. The new teacher prepares for the meeting, while the parents arrive late - so does the businessman Jānis, the president of the parent's school council Žanete arrives with flowers and a gift; the spouses of an open marriage Valts and Laine playing "truth or dare", while the recently divorced Maija and Raivo exchange barbs. The planning of the children's graduation turns into an absurd escalation of conflicts between the parents.

A story about a young mechanic who tries to collect debt during a friend's funeral.

A granddaughter spends a week with her grandparents and falls in love with their kittens. However, when her grandfather, without attempting to discuss or understand, prepares to drown the kittens, the girl rebels against the incomprehensible morality and power of adults.

Based on true events that took place in the vicinity of Līvāni in 1945 after Soviet re-occupation. Catholic priest Antons Juhņevičs, serving in the Vanagi parish, hid local men on church premises so they could escape conscription into the Red Army. Finding himself in conflict with the ruling power due to his convictions, he was forced to take a radical step.

In the cemetery of small town, a Man and a Woman, both middle-aged, meet at sunset. He has a terrible plan of how to battle with cemetery vandals, but she is suspicious of his real purpose.

A young woman, Regina, has been killed in her apartment. Investigator Anderson holds Regina’s husband as a suspect for a murder because he is unable to remember his location at the time of the fateful event. Gradually, Anderson is convinced that Oto has not only killed his wife, but he also tries to hide his true identity – notorious criminal Schmit.

“TESA MAN” is a music film – a poetic exploration of the relationship between collective creativity and the natural world. The film blurs the lines between reality and imagination, inviting viewers into an animistic experience where music performed by the band Tesa in a frozen Baltic landscape attempts to transform air, steam, ash and clay into something much more alive.

Suddenly, Peter, sitting in his tractor, wins a radio competition for a potato variety. He turns his back on his wife and rides the tractor into town to collect his prize. Peter's journey becomes more important than the original destination - it resolves his relationship with his wife.

Young Juris is being raised by his mother alone in a rural village. She is in love with Jānis, a collective farm driver, and the two plan to get married. As the wedding approaches, Juris prepares a special secret gift for them—a “sun candle” plant he is growing in a forest clearing.

The characters of the movie are closely twisted. Each of the heroes is a slave to their own passions. Only through strong will and some happy event they will be able to free themselves from their addictions.

Tonight, Anna and her dad have decided to walk home through the forest. Anna takesa torch and dad lights it up for her. The silent nocturnal forest is as enchanting as it is scary – and the bright flameas protective as it is blindingly bright.

Four directors capture simple, yet quintessential experiences of a single individual in different periods of his life - childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age.

Riga isn’t necessarily beautiful in winter. But it is alive. Kārlis accidentally runs over Kirils, breaking his bicycle. To fix it, they set out together to find a repairman – who, of course, has disappeared somewhere. One coincidence follows another, one encounter leads to the next, and their seemingly aimless wandering through Riga gradually turns into a friendship. It is a symphony of youth played out amidst falling snow, the noise of traffic, the voices of the city and improvised music. Carpe diem – they seize the day.

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.

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.

In 1937, silent film star Maria Leiko travels to USSR upon learning of the birth of her granddaughter. But when she discovers the tragic circumstances of that event, KGB agents persuade her to remain in the country. Leiko abandons her cinema career to instead join Skatuve, the Latvian State Theatre in Moscow. Soon she discovers that she is being manipulated by the government amid its purges of political enemies. As a network of traitors, informers, and NKVD agents surround her, she must choose between family and career, and between her ideals and the lies of Stalin’s totalitarian regime.

Maija is a young and ambitious journalist who wants to do something that no other journalist has dared. In order to conduct a groundbreaking research on Daesh, she pretends to be an Islamic convert and tries to join them.

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.

Gertrude is a forty-year-old woman. She is lonely and lives in a one-room apartment. She works at a public lavatory. One night, a spider bites her. Gertrude gains superpowers: super strength and ability to weave a web, yet she does not understand how to deal with these new-found abilities. The relationship between the spider and Gertrude reminds of destructive relationship between a man and a woman.

By chance, Louise and Kaspars meet on a trip to celebrate Midsummer’s Eve. She’s running away from annoying neighbours and general sense of pointlessness; he’s running away from a failing marriage. They’re both young, talented, and lost; they both want to become artists; they’re both unsure how to go on about their lives. Maybe that’s why their shared trip turns into a strange, sometimes funny and sometimes complicated journey through a relationship over the course of three years.