Lauma Balode

Baltic Tribes

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.

Sterile Zone

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.

Escaping Riga

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.

Converts

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.

Touch of Dzenis

A female ninja tries to break ties with her spiritual teacher. The seemingly unexpected and humiliating death of her teacher is only the beginning of this process; it is a decisive step in her life. The action takes place in a specific environment, and the characters, references, symbols, and movements are directly related to the history of cinema, more specifically, to Japanese ninja films made in the 1930s–1960s.

Mommies 3

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.

A Certain Kind of Silence

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

The Discomfited

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.

Lotus

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.

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