Touch of Dzenis

DocuDrama about 13th century pre-Christian culture. Danish spy Lars enters the tribal lands of the Baltic peoples, where he takes part in religious rites, cruel forays, gets high during the Summer Solstice, becomes slave to the Couronians and even fights the crusaders. Who were the last pagans of Europe and how did they live? It is a unique trip into the textures of the past and into the unknown lands of the Baltic Tribes.

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

In spite of bad omen about the upcoming storm, the fisherman sets out to the sea and doesn’t return. The wife of the fisherman embarks on a journey to find the storm whisperer who could calm down the sea and return the fisherman home.

Harry Berzins is abducted by aliens. Traumatic experience gained is on a foreign planet, where the gray race rules and makes Berzins feel excluded. The only creature he believes is the odd Ufologist Vilma Kavace. While Vilma uses Berzins as an alien attraction bait, his mother, impregnated with a Latvian sperm on another planet, carries his child. Shieet.

Kristaps is a medical student. His father was once a great surgeon. Kristaps wants to become a surgeon as well, but during one of his first operations, he faints... The film is a tragicomic story about dreams and ways to reach them; it is about the belief in oneself, the occasional struggle, family legends and the ability to change ourselves.

Born in 1988, Kristaps finally wants to find out who is his real father. Family women do not tell if it is Guntis or Gvido. Kristaps goes to search for his father, acting as the boom operator of the documentary.

The film is based on true events, it tells the stories of two outstanding personalities of the 20th century – Sergei Eisenstein and Isaiah Berlin, who were both born and spent their childhood in Riga but soon had to leave the city. The film follows the lives of the two characters during the turbulent first half of the 20th century, telling how one of them becomes “the greatest film director of his generation” in the totalitarian Soviet Union, and the other “the greatest thinker of his generation” in liberal Great Britain.

An investigative journalist decides to take down an esoteric organization based around the implementation of structured water.

In April 1969 Ilya (Eliyahu) Rips, then a young student of mathematics, tried to burn himself in a public square in Riga, Latvia protesting against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. He was stopped and eventually sent to a psychiatric hospital for two years. Thanks to international pressure from the mathematical community in 1972 he was allowed to emigrate to Israel. Now he is considered one of the most brilliant mathematicians in the world. At the same time, for most people familiar with his name, Rips is first of all associated with the development of the so called Bible Code – a mathematical program allegedly helping to decipher hidden messages encoded in Torah – the Five Books of Moses. He is attacked by both the scientific and religious community, yet his research continues.

CIA agents Palmer and Gagano are tasked with the perilous mission of destroying “The Soviet Union!" As they enter the system using a VR simulation, their mission quickly turns into a delirious trap, far more complex than expected, as the fabric of reality starts unraveling around them.

A small village on the Baltic coast. Three guys are trying to fulfil their lives by drinking beer, killing time and picking up fights with neighboring villagers. Andža is trying to convince his girlfriend to marry him. The sudden arrival of his elder brother Guido starts a series of events where main roles a played by elevated self-esteem, pride and cravings for love that is stronger than death.

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.

Estere spends her days by the sea selling ice cream. Trying to find peace, she listens to meditation podcasts and self-help books. Meanwhile, strangers caressed by the summer sun look for the same in tarot cards, alcohol and the Bible. Estere starts to imitate overheard conversations: stuck in positive self-verbalization, she repeats it until she believes it.

Three unrelated sci-fi stories that depict people’s search for happiness.

An insecure millennial woman pursues her dream whilst learning how to adult. While being preoccupied with life tasks at hand she can barely handle and also severe depression, main character of this film Marta (30) keeps dreaming about making films, drawn to the healing power of storytelling, but not having the courage to act these dreams out; sometimes she is too scared to even pick up the phone. Marta’s life seems to sway both in comic and tragic directions: it’s sometimes a mix of ultimate freedom, sex, drugs, friendship, laughter, alcohol, lots of alcohol, music, honesty and love, and sometimes the reality Marta avoids to face becomes so brutal she can’t take it anymore. Through the course of the film Marta learns there is an unavoidable question that at some point becomes inevitable for almost every filmmaker: if you really want to direct films, can you first direct yourself out of depression?

Following an ad in the paper, Ilze leaves her native village to become an actress. She fails the audition, but her pride won't let her return home. Her boyfriend is skeptical about her ambitions, so he comes after her to bring her back home. The plot evolves around their relationship as they pretend and lie to each other trying to end the emotional stand-off.

This time, in keeping with the best traditions of the first two parts, Mothers tells a beautiful, fascinating, lyrical and funny story of the three mothers that takes place in a small European town on New Year’s Eve. The three mothers are flying to Prague on New Year’s Eve.

Alice von Trota returns to her father’s manor in Latvia in 1919 to sell it and start a new life. She meets the hostile resistance of the local workers and discovers she has been lured into a carefully tailored trap set by a demonic lawyer, a decadent underground organisation and its necrophile leader. While escaping the clutches of her “helpers”, she meets some silent-cinema enthusiasts and learns to use the cinematograph as a tool for healing and self-discovery, as a weapon against her enemies and as a way to create a masterpiece.

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.

While working abroad, young au pair Mia unwittingly surrenders her reason, her heart and her dreams to a radical family community.

Valmiera is a town in Latvia. Valmiera’s Boss’ favourite car has been stolen, and his cousin, who has been in charge of guarding it – shot. The toughest member of the Valmiera gang – Mārtiņš – has been ordered to deal with this mission in the rival town of Liepāja. Little does he know, that the initiator of this mess is right there within their own gang.