Dzintra Geka-Vaska

Signe un...

Portrait of Signe Baumane. About creative people, obsession and fixation with their work, huge egos without which nothing gets done, but alongside them are others whose lives are willingly or unwillingly subordinated... The train of alienation is picking up speed, and it seems that it is impossible to jump off without painful injuries.

Ilmārs Blumbergs

The story of the secret of self-creativity, the loneliness of the soul, the meridians of con-sciousness and the scope of man. Ilmārs Blumbergs (1943-2016) is a concept in life than can be classically proven if we analyze his work in set design, poster art, painting and multimedia work. The personality of Blumbergs, however is a shifting and intangible material which ensures superior value, wonderfulness and intimacy to all that he created. Those who analyze his art and world perceptions, recognize the work as seeming to come from antiquity, but it can never be catalogued or recorded in bookkeeping. How fortunate that it also cannot be consumed.

The Fathers Over There

Andris Caune, Ojārs Grensbergs, Imants Grāvītis and Jānis Zemtautis spent many years in the Gulag camps. They survived. In 1954, a riot broke out in Jezkazan, Kazakhstan. The men’s camp and women’s camp joined together and held on for 40 days. Then came the tanks that killed more than 1,000 of them. Austra Vērpe met her future husband there. They were lucky to stay alive. The dream of the musician Zigfrīds Muktupāvels was to find the grave of his paternal uncle in far-off Kazakhstan. He was named after his uncle, who never came home. Zigfrīds and a cousin headed off into the steppes to look for a monument reading “Zigfrīds Muktupāvels.” The next round of deportations occurred in 1949, and whole families were sent to Siberia. Fathers were tried in court, a great many ended up in punitive camps in Vorkuta and Inta. Skaidrīte Jostmane and Māris Landers travelled to Vorkuta to find their father’s gravesite.

Where Did The Fathers Go?

The children who were sent to Siberia in 1941 have not seen their fathers – in their memories they recollect: “My father was arrested, he was sent to Vyatlag camp. He died there in March, 1942. He was not convicted. Father was tried in the autumn of 1942, when he was already dead, Moscow Troika verdict: 10 years in prison and confiscation of property...”The railcar moves along overgrown rails. For 70 years, the twelve participants of the journey have wanted to go to the places from where their fathers did not return. Among the harsh nature the tension on their faces shows.

Konstantīns

A documentary about Latvian freedom fighter Konstantīns Čakste who was the son of the first Latvian president and who perished in 1945.

Kurts Fridrihsons

The significance of Kurts Fridrihsons reaches beyond the importance of his art, because during the Soviet period there were not many personalities refusing to comply with the regime while at the same time being outstanding artists. The charm and lightness that Fridrihsons preserved from pre-war civilized Europe and the free, lost Latvia was a harsh contrast to the realities of Soviet life. He was a model and inspiration for many people whose spiritual world refused to accept the existing system. The greater the distance between Fridrihsons’ lifetime and the present day, the more diversely and clearly we see the aloof and exceptional power of his personality. Unlike thousands of people who excuse themselves today for collaborating with the system with phrases like “Such were the times!”, justifying their non-resistance and compliance and their role as little bolts in the system, Fridrihsons – the loner and the example for a different option – is existentially important.

Gvido Zvaigzne

In January 2011, Latvia commemorated the 20th anniversary of the tragic events that occurred in January 1991. Film producer Andris Slapiņš was killed, and cameraman Gvido Zvaigzne was fatally injured on the night of January 20th and died in hospital two weeks later. He was a young man whose talent had not yet fully flourished. His story, however, contains elements that make it not only possible to demonstrate his personal tragedy, but also the problematic existence of a young and creative person during an era when everything was crumbling around him. Destiny kept Gvido Zvaigzne from finishing his route, but the events and values of his life represent a model of his generation’s efforts.

Agapitova and the Rescued

This is a film about the return of an individual to the Far North, and to the past. Agapitova, Igarka – the vast lands of Siberia, to which Ilmārs Knaģis and 4,000 other children from Latvia were deported in 1941. In the autumn of 1942, 700 mothers and children of different nationalities were sent to the death island of Agapitova. Only 60 survived, among them six Latvian children – Biruta Kazaka, Pāvels Kliesbergs, Venta Grāvīte, Ilmārs Grāvītis, Pēteris Bērziņš and Valentīna Voiciša. The question remains: Why did this happen? And why is no one to blame?