Zigrīda Stungure

The end of nineteenth century. Maidservant Madara is in love with farmhand Andrs, yet she marries a rich and old household owner. As time passes, her heart hardens and things get complicated when Andrs returns to the neighborhood and Madara's husband dies leaving her widowed with a son.

Riga, the 1930s. Oļģerts Kurmis, an educated unemployed, does all kinds of odd jobs. Together with his friend, vagrant Frīdis, they sometimes work for Mr. Kalnkāja who dreams of becoming a member of parliament. Kurmis feels responsible for his neighbour Emma, the young woman has just served a prison sentence for petty theft. He helps her to get a maid's position in the Kalnkāja household. While helping Kurmis and Frīdis with Kalnkāja's election posters, Emma is arrested again, this time for a "political offence".

After becoming a teacher, Janis Lazdan returns to his native village in Latgale. In Novie Gudani, he sees black cassocks everywhere. Nuns sit at the bedside of his sick mother. The girl he loves, Lienite, is dressed in the black habit of a novice. Anton, Janis' childhood friend, has become a priest. A struggle begins between Janis and Anton, a subtle psychologist, over Andris, a sickly boy who is extremely impressionable and gifted. Janis understands that the power of the church lies in the indifference of non-believers. He believes in his own strength and love for his loved ones.

A story of a Latvian rifleman between two revolutions.

The first film in a duology based on the biography of Latvian revolutionary Jānis Fabricius. Mārtiņš Venta, the son of a forest ranger, enrolls in a Riga gymnasium and becomes an underground activist, while his classmate, Dace, a teacher's daughter, is expelled from the Riga school for singing the revolutionary song Kā gulbji balti padebeši iet. Dace becomes an actress, but Mārtiņš is drafted into the tsar's army. He refuses to participate in the shooting of a workers' demonstration and is sentenced to exile, but before his deportation, Mārtiņš is allowed to marry Dace in prison.

In 17th-century Latvia, as Swedish and Polish armies march across the war-torn land, the corrupt councillors of Riga stand ready to hand over the city’s keys to whichever foreign power pays the highest price. But three jolly friends — Andris, Pēteris, and Ērmanis — together with their female companions Rūta, Anna, and Lēne, refuse to surrender without a fight. Rallying the people of Riga, they rise in a courageous struggle for freedom of their city.