Firstborn

Jan, a guy in his twenties, and his friend Cracker are involved in several crimes in their neglected suburb of the city. After meeting the “golden youth” beauty Sabina, he looks for a fresh start in downtown circles, but only finds contempt. His hopes for love, compassion and opportunity are dashed by the even more ruthless rules of the bourgeois, and he comes to realize that the only one he can count on is himself.

A business executive lays off hundreds of harbor workers after they go on strike. He and his wife plan to escape the stress by taking an Italian vacation. On the evening before the trip, one of the fired workers, dressed in an orange harbor worker safety jacket, slips into their home. Although his immediate actions reveal a murderous intent, revenge is only the initial step.

Lost in remotest part of Eastern Europe, Sam is a foreigner, searching for his biological father Lagzdins where a minor road accident leads to a chance meeting with a pig-farmer's daughter, who captures him and makes him a forced laborer on the farm.

An Australian Latvian comes to Latvia, eager to participate in the national Song and Dance Festival. He is alone, without his own dance group - how far will he go to get accepted in a local dance group?

Helēna feels unfulfilled in her marriage to Rihards, a university lecturer. Together with their children Ēriks and Maija, they go to their house in the countryside to renovate it as Helēna hopes to soon be able to organise dance retreats there. More surprising than the dreariness of their relationship are the creatures that inhabit their forest house – fleshy caterpillars in the wallpaper, slithering worms on the dinner plates, and stag beetles on the damp walls. As the terror of the insects takes hold, Helēna and Rihards each take up positions on opposing front lines in a war that also uncovers the children’s phobias and losses they have not yet processed.

A young man lives a lonely existence together with a mother whose only interest is watching programmes about animals. He finds the surrounding emptiness so traumatising that he decides to change his life.

Twins Alba and Livia visit a mirror-themed art exhibit with their eccentric art historian grandfather. There, Alba discovers she can bring paintings to life and accidentally frees Janus, a chaos-bringing god trapped in a mirror of a painting. As Janus warps reality, their grandfather falls under his spell. The girls must journey through art and myth to save him, and the world.

A rediscovery at the Latvian National Opera. The opera L’incantesimo was forgotten soon after its premiere. Its composer, Italo Montemezzi, was inspired by the great champions of Italian verismo, including Ruggero Leoncavallo. This resurrection of Montemezzi’s work will be performed in a double bill alongside Pagliacci. Lord Folco is out hunting in dead of winter when a hind with the face of his beloved wife Giselda appears to him in a vision. In a panic, he stabs the creature and flees. A necromancer warns him that if his love for Giselda is to survive, he must find the mortally wounded hind and bring her back to the castle with him. Meanwhile, Giselda’s own feelings for her former suitor Rinaldo have been rekindled.