In the Shade of the Oak Tree

A Latvian poetic documentary about the town Kuldīga.

This is the 3rd film in almost 30 years about the daily lives of the people living in this small street of Pārdaugava. We first met them in the late 1980s when the Soviet Union was on the brink of collapse. We visited them again in the wild 1990s. And now we meet them in 2013, again in a whole different world.

The To Be Continued documentary follows lives of five children throughout their first school year. Kārlis's family is firmly rooted in the Latvian countryside. Gleb's grandparents came to Latvia only in the Soviet period. Zane's family are first-generation urban-dwellers. Anastasija's family moved from the city to the countryside. Anete's mum lives and works in England. The film explores how these choices made by adults are reflected in a child's thinking.

Ten years have passed since we made the film “Crossroad Street”, about a small street in the suburbs of the city of Riga. Now we’ve come back. Perhaps it was a sense of duty, perhaps nostalgia that brought us back – who knows? Perhaps it was both. Daiga, Aldis, Osis – they’re all our people. The first film had an impact on both the filmmakers and the residents of Crossroad Street. We found friends whom we want to meet again and again. Society has become more prosperous, several value systems coexist side-by-side. People often live in these systems as though they were in different worlds that never meet. We felt that the world inhabited by our people is sinking into oblivion, and so we wanted to show that it still has its own turbulence, that Crossroad Street resembles Latvia’s palm – the place where a fortune teller can see the lines of its destiny.

A poetic documentary observation of everyday life in a Latvian fishing village, where centuries-old traditions and wind-hardened men and women live alongside the optimism of new construction and the smiling faces of the new generation.

One of the first socially relevant poetic films in Latvian cinema history, documenting the lives of female workers at a fiberglass factory – their work, leisure, dreams, hopes, and also the problems caused by the "influx" of young women into the small town after the factory was built.

A leisurely message about the people of the Zvejnieks collective farm, created in the style of Riga's poetic documentary cinema.

Crossroad Street is a small street just 800 metres long on the outskirts of the Latvian capital, Riga. Its various inhabitants, each with his or her own destiny, daily life and relationships with the neighbours, form a microcosm of the country during the time of the Awakening. The genuine interest of the film's creators in the so-called average person earned a number of international awards, including a European Film Award for best documentary in 1989.

In the Latvian countryside at the end of the 19th century, Jānis decides it is time to find a wife—but choosing the right one proves no easy task. Pretending to have gone deaf after listening to church bells from the bell tower, he visits the surrounding farms and overhears conversations never meant for his ears. While others reveal their true characters, only Ilze, the blacksmith’s sister, shows genuine concern and wonders how the unfortunate young man might be cured.

On his 18th birthday, Māris receives a motorcycle from his parents, and, while driving around with his friends, they pass a wedding car. The bride, Inese, is entering a loveless marriage, so she allows Māris to steal her from the wedding reception.

Through six very different families, documentary “The Land” shows the variety of the countryside in the 21st century, the contradictions of countryside living as well as illusions about farmer’s life. There are various reasons why our protagonists chose to live in the homesteads, away from the hustle and bustle of the city. Some were done with spending too much time in an office, traffic and living a virtual life, they wanted real, tangible things. Some have moved to countryside by their own choice, but some by predisposition of their families. But what unites them all - they aspire for the stability provided by their own land and house. Together with our protagonists, we will spend one year’s cycle of farmer’s life, that will start with the spring sowing and finish with the autumn harvest and land preparation for the next year.

Five children started school in different parts of Latvia in 2015 and we followed them through their first schoolyear in the 2018 documentary “To be continued”. Now 14 years old, they are halfway to adulthood. Some have matured, some seem to be still lingering in childhood. Zane has traded her dream of a singing career for her passion for the basketball. Gleb fights in the boxing ring and puts his business talent to good use by selling rulers in class. Anastasia from Stoļerova in the Rezekne region rides horses and learns not to give up. Anete's mother has returned from England and they are now living in Riga and Anete now has a little brother. Kārlis, from Vidzeme, is still fascinated by tractors but now sows fields in a virtual computer game.

The degradation of a human under the influence of alcohol.

Filmmakers of Riga poetic documentary school, Freimanis and Seleckis, were designated as the creative core for this documentary to be shot in honour of the 25th anniversary of the Soviet Latvia. The team was joined by the heavyweight poet Imants Ziedonis and Herz Frank as script writers. Instead of one of the old, merited, medal rattling ‘combat camera- men’, “Year in Review” is an unusually vivid and unique film for the time. The creative team were awarded the State Prize for the film.

While shooting a documentary about a 'Komsomol' class who all went to save a struggling kolkhoz, the filmmakers also shot mud, broken tractors, flooded fields. The film turned scandalous and was not screened, because of it allegedly being anti-Soviet: defamatory of collective farming.

Zolitude is inhabited mainly by immigrants. An extremely denational environment, a disorderly everyday life, depressing standard type architecture - these are the problems faced by the film's characters.