The Future is the Present of the Past

In the beginning there was the forest. Then came the live performance, and then the film. The yellow wagtail, Eurasian skylark, white-backed woodpecker, corncrake and hazel grouse have not only gotten their voices back, but have taken on human form — clad in elegant tailcoats and bearing names — to recount ancient tales. Through the interplay of theatrical metamorphoses and the creative team’s reflections on nature and relationships, a field of meaning unfolds, vaster than any single spectator. Where ends the self, and where begin the wings of birds and the branches of trees? Can culture, standing on the shoulders of nature, also nurture it? Or will it merely glisten in the light like a sawblade?

Accomplished European scenographer and educator Andris Freibergs paints a self-portrait by shaping the stage for an imaginary production titled “Andris Freibergs”. He transforms himself into a space that contains close to eighty years worth of stunning success, tragic loss, birth and death. It is an attempt to create the perfect empty space – one that would simultaneously encompass everything and nothing, the beginning and the end.

This creative documentary tells the story of women in art – what she has to sacrifice in her personal life and what choices have to be made in order to gain success in her career. The film explores life of artist, by following theatre director’s Mara Kimele's fighting relationships with her despotic grandmother Anna Lacis (widely known as Asya, whose life is closely tied to the names of Walter Benjamin and Bertolt Brech), cynical son Peteris (who is played by an actor) and work while she stages F. Dostoevsky's “Crime and Punishment”. Every character of film is an act. But does that make them any less real? And what is real in the world of art? Apart from its human character's, the film also has an animated one – the horse, who came into life through the first letter Mara wrote to her grand mother and has been following her ever since.

This playful story of the mischievous dust fairies follows lively dust creatures as they dance around the nursery, travel up the chimney into the clouds, and soar through the sky with rainbows and raindrops.

For two months, the third-grade students at Cēsis’ New Primary School have been plan-ning and organizing their own graduation ceremony. Throughout this process, the teach-ers are only there to help, trusting in the children’s wisdom, responsibility and ability to organize themselves, make decisions and follow through. Preparations for the celebration involve all the school subjects, turning the school into a place of exciting discovery, where children learn by doing things that are important to them. They enthusiastically live life in the here and now, in all its difficulties and joy.

What does the question “to be or not to be?” mean? 86 year-old director Olģerts Kroders stages his fourth production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet at the Valmiera Drama Theatre. The theatre is more than merely his occupation, for he not only works there but also spends all of his time in it. The film depicts his routine and the rehearsal process up until the premiere, and provokes a dialogue using the four actors who have all played Hamlet in the different productions. Kroders’s life and the lives of the actors tell the history of Latvia and the fates of different generations.

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.

People escaping from home. Escaping to a better life. Escaping from themselves to a globalized world. Over the last years, tens of thousands of Latvians have left Latvia in search of a better life in Ireland. This film reveals the way some of them live, far abroad from home and their families: their desires, emotions, life conditions and relationships.

While playing hide and seek, children discover unprecedented objects, places, and creatures behind the doors of an antique wardrobe! They find themselves in an unexpected universe full of colours and sounds, inhabited by beings both real and only encountered in fantasy. They, too, hide and seek each other throughout the year.

Claudio is a farmer. His wife Ivana is a dressmaker and they are avid tango dancers. They have a big dream: to dance the tango together in Buenos Aires. Claudio has Parkinson’s, an incurable degenerative disease. His condition was diagnosed 20 years ago. Doctors told him that he would be in a wheelchair within two years. However, not only is Claudio still on his feet and able to work, but he’s also still dancing. Today he is devoted to fostering and supporting research on the benefits of tango for Parkinson’s patients. Claudio and Ivana’s story inspired the renowned Latvian composer Arturs Maskats to write a new tango composition with world-famous accordionist Ksenija Sidorova. But just as their dream of dancing in Buenos Aires is about to come true, Claudio is hospitalized...