LV
Russian Federation, December 31, 1999. After President Boris Yeltsin's unexpected resignation, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin becomes acting president of the country. From that day and for a year, Vitaly Mansky's camera documented Putin's rise to power. The story of a privileged witness. The harsh explanation of the reason why politics is the art of possibility of achieving the best with the support of many, but also of giving the worst in return.
Nov 2018
Guttenmorgen leaves the government office to see how people live in the countryside, and on the way he gets stuck in Vienciem.
Nov 2016
The documentary film "Dream Cat", produced by the Latvian Television program "Forbidden method", explains and analyses how the Latvian animated film "Flow" reached the top of world cinema, winning the most prestigious film industry awards "Golden Globe", "Oscar" and many others.
Mar 2025
Raimonds Pauls is almost 85 years old, rehearses almost every day and performs at least once a week. What drives him? Not only he is the most popular composer in Latvia: his songs are sung all over the world. "Dāvāja Māriņa" is so popular in Japan that Paul received the Japanese Order of the Rising Sun. In concerts, he collaborates with world stars of Latvian origin - soprano Elīna Garanča, organist Iveta Apkalna, conductor Mariss Jansons. The Latvian Television film crew follows him during the pandemic, realizing that the restrictions and threats of Covid-19 hardly stop the Maestro in the course of his eternal engine. How does he cope with the challenges that time imposes on a person's physical form and the loneliness when most friends have passed away? What is the source of his inexhaustible lifestyle and creative spirit?
Jan 2021
In September 3, 1997, an art project - the annual exhibition of the Soros Center for Contepmporary Arts-Riga was opened. The centre - piece of the event was the experimental opera "Rolstein on the beach", that was shown in Dailes theatre. The music and libretto of the opera was written by Hardijs Ledins and Kaspars Rolsteins, and popular musicians, actors and well - known public persons took part in the opera.
Jan 1997
In a house soon to be demolished lives a little girl. When her mother dies, she is forced to look for shelter at the side of a man, the only one still left in the house. He is a strange, somber man with his only companions being two endlessly trustworthy dogs - Monk and Prince.
Dec 2002
An attempt to understand the people chanting "Atlaist Saeimu!" (Sack the parliament!) year after year. Though rarely attracting a great deal of notice, there are always individuals collecting signatures for a referendum to dissolve the parliament for one reason or another, or simply standing outside the building and reciting their familiar mantra. Latvian governments change fairly often, but the parliament has been dissolved in line wth the Constitution only once, in 2010 (in 1934 it was dissolved unconstitutionally following a coup by Prime Minister Kārlis Ulmanis). The actual parliament building in Old Rīga was, however, attacked in January 2009 during a very rare violent protest which precipitated the fall of Ivars Godmanis' cabinet. The documentary zips back and forth in time giving portraits of various different people and political forces pushing the idea to "Atlaist Saeimu" for different reasons.
Nov 2020
Jan 1992
A group of children from the capital city of Riga arrive in the small border village of Ipiķi. The townsfolk immediately know that "they aren’t locals, they’re from the capital. You can tell by the way they dress.” The differences between the city and rural children are quite evident. While the country children nimbly climb trees, play games with knives and axes, and hide in their self-made tree house, the city children buy sweets in the town store, hoping to buy the goodwill of the local children. However, gaining entry into the tree house is not so simple.
Nov 2013
The film focuses on a bizarre state of affairs in the northern city of Valmiera where the corpse of a man has lain for nine years because of complex and contradictory communications between the relatives and various responsible institutions. The situation could easily have come from the pen of Gogol or Kafka, but is all too real and prompts questions about the more general problem of bureaucracy in Latvia.
Nov 2022
Alekss arrives at the Murjāņi sports school to become a champion. He’s introduced to the ironclad daily routine, which starts at 7 AM and ends at 8 PM, with practices twice a day and the rest of the time filled with lessons, exams and homework, just like at any other school. He has to wash his own clothes, make his own bed and clean his own room. The second hero of the film, Kristaps, has been living at Murjāņi for three years now. He takes part in the European Youth Olympic Festival, where everyone is strong but only a select few make it to the winners’ podium. Luck is not on Kristaps’ side in this case, and what he gets are only harsh reprimands and tears in his eyes. This slice of life at Murjāņi shows the difficult path to victory through sweat, tears and hard work.
Nov 2015
A family drama based on the short story "The Edge of the Abyss" by Raimonds Trasuns.
Jan 1998
Nov 2021
For more than a decade, wildfires of unprecedented force have been devouring our lives, homes and forests at a steady pace. Each year, 350 million hectares of forest go up in smoke, the equivalent of six times the size of France. In the US, the fire season now lasts up to two months longer than a generation ago, and the surface burnt annually has multiplied by three. This film sets out on a gripping journey of investigation from Europe to the US, Canada, Brazil and Indonesia to follow the work of a global team of dedicated firefighters, scientists and fire experts as they investigate why our forests are going up in flames, and act on an unexpected discovery: if we want to save our forests, homes, health and our climate, we need to radically change our attitude towards fire and the way we fight wildfires.
Jan 2020
A TV documentary about Latvian actor Uldis Pūcītis, featuring fragments from many of his films ("Swap Treader", "Four White Shirts" and others), as well as stories by people who knew him - actors and directors, former lovers and classmates.
Dec 2020
In this film a young man and his curmudgeonly grandfather are going 1,800 km to northern Russia in an old Zhiguli car, hoping to find the grave of their great-grandfather, who was deported. The grandfather Andris is sceptic over the lofty quest, initiated by his grand-son, as it’s not known what awaits them at their destination. Andris thinks they won’t find anything and will come back to Latvia without ever learning what happened to his father. However ever-optimistic Kārlis wants to use the journey not only to find answers about the past but also become closer to his grandfather who raised him. They both lost their parents as children.
Oct 2016
A documentary about Latvian film star Vija Artmane.
Aug 2019
Project: Moving sees a young professional explore and debate the trend of young people leaving Rīga for somewhere more suitable for living, particularly the town of Cēsis in the scenic Vidzeme region. "We are simply showing that right now Cēsis has become the hipster capital, and it's not bad at all. It's like a different kind of gentrification, and it affects not just a single quarter, but the entire town."
'Žagari' traces the lives of Andrejs and Juris Žagars, brothers from the city of Cēsis, who both became distinguished in the arts as actors and administrators of art institutions, while both also found success as entrepreneurs. The original plan of the filmmakers was to show two strong personalities with their characteristic relationship and rivalries. However, fate intervened during the filming process, transforming the result into a powerful and touching portrait of brotherly love and the importance of family ties.
Oct 2019
More than twenty years after Vladimir Putin came to supreme power in Russia on May 7, 2000, Russian society is deeply divided. A young, modern generation opposes the growing repression by the regime, which still retains the support of many members of previous generations. Who are these ordinary citizens who dream of living in a different Russia? What price will they have to pay to achieve the freedom and justice they so desire?
Feb 2022