Ghetto Stories. Riga

Nora Bumbiere (1947-1994) was one of the popular estrada-singer in Latvia. This will be a documentary about Nora. About Nora, who has left us an unforgettable musical story. A story that it's time to tell.

Self-made banker Boriss Osipovs achieves quick success immediately after the collapse of the USSR, but he flees Latvia to avoid arrest for illegal operations. Fifteen years later, his family receives a photograph from Interpol of an elderly gentleman with the same name who resides in a Malaysian mental asylum. Could it be him? Despite the reservations of her family, Osipovs’ daughter, documentary director Ieva Ozoliņa, starts an investigation to find out the truth about the man in the photograph. An emotional story about a man who loses himself in times of change...and the daughter who hopes to find him.

Anastasia is 13 and her sister Diana is 11. The two sisters live in a Latvian orphanage. When they find out that an American family is ready to adopt them, Diana cannot wait to move to the States, while Anastasia is less excited about the idea of leaving her home.

From birth to death, from depression to creative fervor, from desire and passion to the northern ice... Seven fateful episodes that define the life of a painter. Seven contemporary artists share their views on a classic without whom Latvian art would be unimaginable. The documentary film "Rozentāls. Seven" was made in the year of his 150th anniversary. Janis Rozentāls is a pioneer and founder of national painting, a brilliant talent who continues to influence Latvian culture through the centuries, one of the most expressive figures in the Latvian cultural canon. Behind these lofty phrases lies a living person, an artist who fought for the right to paint in the way he considered important.

During Latvia’s centennial year, 15 filmmakers created each his own film portrait of a person living in Latvia on the background of centenary events. Documentary 2018 combines these stories into a unique poetic vision based on analogy with the documentary 235 000 000, a classic of the Riga school of poetic documentary cinema. This film is an attempt to make sure whether the codes of the poetic cinema are still relevant and accessible today.

Viktors is an entrepreneur with a unique offer – he has built a bar, bakery, spa, hotel and an auto-shop in a former “sovkhoz” cafeteria in the village of Lone. Viktors understands life, and that his words carry weight – almost 500 village inhabitants are now employed. Lone is a lively place both day and night, full of youths and many other businesses. Viktors is very proud.

The chance meeting between Aspazija and Rainis in January 1894 changed not only the lives of Latvia's future royal couple of poetry, but also the lives of the entire Latvian people. This creative union gave birth to a new language and poetry, revolutionary ideas, and the demand for an independent state. Elza and Jānis' love story, full of twists of fate and difficult trials, is very intimate, poignant, and beautiful.

Directed by Renārs Vimba, this documentary film follows composer Ēriks Ešenvalds on his expeditions to the Arctic circle in preparation of his large-scale Nordic Light Multimedia Symphony, which was premiered in 2015 and has been performed in the US, Canada, Germany and Latvia.

Guttenmorgen leaves the government office to see how people live in the countryside, and on the way he gets stuck in Vienciem.

A story of a Latvian middle-class couple - Laura and Aivars, who have been forced to look at their lives from a new point of view due to the restrictions of the pandemic, and Laura decides to divorce. Aivars is not happy about this, and in order to make the process less painful, a relationship counselor is hired, who makes Laura and Aivars perform various tasks aimed at making the divorce peaceful and respectful. The couple's children watch the sudden epic with mixed feelings - the eldest daughter Eva, who openly demonstrates her indifference and independence, and the youngest son Haralds, who is fond of video recording, which he also does during parental arguments. Their neighbors, the Liepini family - Talis and Jogita - are also drawn into the whirlwind of events. The divorce becomes an unpredictable and somewhat tragicomic series of events for almost everyone involved.