Stand

Raw and unflinching examination of the courageous life of basketball star and social justice activist Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf. Born Chris Jackson, he overcame tremendous adversity to reach the NBA and found his true calling when he converted to Islam. His decision not to stand for the national anthem, however, turned him from prodigy to pariah. Told candidly by Abdul-Rauf himself more than 20 years later it’s the remarkable story of one man who kept the faith and paved the way for a social justice movement.

2023-02-03 | en

Grandfather's Father

In this film a young man and his curmudgeonly grandfather are going 1,800 km to northern Russia in an old Zhiguli car, hoping to find the grave of their great-grandfather, who was deported. The grandfather Andris is sceptic over the lofty quest, initiated by his grand-son, as it’s not known what awaits them at their destination. Andris thinks they won’t find anything and will come back to Latvia without ever learning what happened to his father. However ever-optimistic Kārlis wants to use the journey not only to find answers about the past but also become closer to his grandfather who raised him. They both lost their parents as children.

2016-10-01 | lv

Nos hommes dans l'Ouest

A different perspective on the exile and social impact of major projects such as oil sands mining in Alberta, Canada. These large-scale projects, based on economic growth, also have human costs that change the cultural face of the regions on a small or large scale. Over a six-month period, three families from the Acadian Peninsula in New Brunswick opened their doors and hearts to director Renée Blanchar and her team. A film about exile, choice of life, values, but especially absence; absence being probably the highest price to pay for each member of these families.

2017-11-16 | fr

My Body

Oscar, not quite a child anymore, scavenges for scrap metal for his father. He spends his life in improvised landfills among what remains of leftovers. Worlds apart, yet close-by, there is Stanley. He tidies the church in exchange for a monetised hospitality, picks fruits, herds sheep: anything that keep his foreign body busy. Oscar, the young Sicilian, and Stanley the Nigerian don’t seem to have much in common. Except for the feeling of being thrown into the world, to suffer the same refusal, the same overwhelming wave of choices imposed on them by others.

2021-05-26 | it

If Trees Could Talk

Deniss is a Russian-speaking young man working at a fast food chain and spending his days in a small, gloomy apartment where all the things still remind him of his dead grandmother. Once a week he takes the stage, becoming a stand-up comedian. His jokes come from his life, which might be called dull as well as bleak, and, as he puts it, his ‘uninteresting biography’.

2016-11-08 | lv

Seekers

This film probes the activities of the bezvests.lv NGO that looks for missing persons and instructs others on how to find them. Since they started in 2009, they’ve helped find more than 90 people who had gone missing. It follows volunteers during training and on a search mission – theirs is a nerve-wracking task as in many cases they only locate the expired body of the missing person.

2017-11-12 | lv

Lone Man

Viktors is an entrepreneur with a unique offer – he has built a bar, bakery, spa, hotel and an auto-shop in a former “sovkhoz” cafeteria in the village of Lone. Viktors understands life, and that his words carry weight – almost 500 village inhabitants are now employed. Lone is a lively place both day and night, full of youths and many other businesses. Viktors is very proud.

2014-11-05 | lv

Think School

For two months, the third-grade students at Cēsis’ New Primary School have been plan-ning and organizing their own graduation ceremony. Throughout this process, the teach-ers are only there to help, trusting in the children’s wisdom, responsibility and ability to organize themselves, make decisions and follow through. Preparations for the celebration involve all the school subjects, turning the school into a place of exciting discovery, where children learn by doing things that are important to them. They enthusiastically live life in the here and now, in all its difficulties and joy.

2015-11-03 | lv

Talkers

The three speakers represent two of the dialects, with the most common one - the middle dialect spoken in Riga and central parts of Latvia - not featured in the film. In intimate surroundings, a farmer, a schoolteacher, and a herder of ostriches talk about perceived differences between Latvian speakers, and about language policy and their lives.

2016-11-08 | lv

Residents

The documentary “Residents” probes problems in Latvia in general and Latvia’s medicine in particular with the story of two energetic young interns, Kārlis and Laura.

2017-11-12 | lv

The Man with the Lantern

2018-01-22 | it

Ghosthunter

In Sydney, Australia, Jason King, a security guard and a part-time ghost hunter, has spent decades searching for his absent father. When this personal endeavor crosses paths with a police investigation, an unspeakable family secret comes to light.

2018-06-07 | en

David and Goliath

The documentary chronicles the life stories of two brothers, Kristaps and Krists. Kristaps, the elder brother, is disabled and has trouble talking, but he can rap. His younger brother Krists is one of the best freestyle BMX bikers in Latvia.

2018-11-18 | lv

Short Day

An ordinary old folks’ home on the Latvian border – one of many, where our parents, grand-parents and other relatives spend their old age. Theirs is the generation whose prime years co-existed with the Soviet Union, and who were promised: work, give all you can, and we’ll take care when you’re old. The system changed and the reality is different. How to live in this reality, accept the current rules, or live in the past and have regrets. We will touch upon their world, and the dreams and hopes of Vilnis, Imants, Alberts and Elizabete.

2014-11-05 | lv

The Misunderstood

An attempt to understand the people chanting "Atlaist Saeimu!" (Sack the parliament!) year after year. Though rarely attracting a great deal of notice, there are always individuals collecting signatures for a referendum to dissolve the parliament for one reason or another, or simply standing outside the building and reciting their familiar mantra. Latvian governments change fairly often, but the parliament has been dissolved in line wth the Constitution only once, in 2010 (in 1934 it was dissolved unconstitutionally following a coup by Prime Minister Kārlis Ulmanis). The actual parliament building in Old Rīga was, however, attacked in January 2009 during a very rare violent protest which precipitated the fall of Ivars Godmanis' cabinet. The documentary zips back and forth in time giving portraits of various different people and political forces pushing the idea to "Atlaist Saeimu" for different reasons.

2020-11-24 | lv

Eagle Man

Latvia is home to almost one fifth of the world’s population of the lesser spotted eagle, yet their number is endangered. Uģis Bergmanis is one of Latvia’s best-known ornithologists, and he does his best to save the eagles in Latvia. He also has another passion – he hunts wolves. He can sit for hours in freezing temperatures until meeting his prey eye to eye. There are many stories in this man. And some of them are going to be told.

2015-11-03 | lv

Gauja. Twice in the River

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.

2013-11-16 | lv

The Inked Family

“The Inked Family” follows a couple of married Latvian-born tattoo artists – Anrijs and Monami Frost of online fame. They’re now living in Liverpool with their daughter, and their previous lives in Latvia seem almost surreal to them. The film traces Monami’s past, and the couple’s current lives and the success they’ve found as tattoo artists.

2017-11-12 | lv

Restart

The heroine is a widow and a fiancé who wants to begin a new and happy life. Conflicts in her family’s past prevent it, but she does not give up – she wants to clear away the ruins and do what she can. “Enough of looking for guilt, it’s time to find a solution,” she thinks, and takes action.

2014-11-05 | lv

Lords of Riga

Lords of Riga allows to see an insight into a passionate subculture of bike couriers. Weaving their way through the urban traffic, they have become silent and sometimes unnoticed witnesses of everyday life in Riga as well as examples of our modern-day society. What is freedom to this bunch of rebellious messengers and where it ends?

2015-11-03 | lv