Sibīrijas bērni

The year 2011 marked the 70th anniversary of the deportations of June 14 1941, when 15 425 residents of Latvia (Latvians, Jews, Russians, Poles) were deported to Siberia. Among them there were 3 751 children aged up to 16. During the process men were separated from their families and sent to gulags, where many were sentenced to death, while others were imprisoned in labour camps. The facts of history and dry and few, but many of the victims and their children and grandchildren are still among us. During the summer of 2010, people who were deported to Siberia in 1941 as children joined their own children and a video production crew to travel back to the far North of Russia.

The years 1941 and 1949 became a fateful turning point for thousands of Latvians who were taken away without warning to an unknown destination. In a foreign land and harsh conditions, they tried to preserve their humanity, create a new life, and raise their children. These children grew up far from their homeland, in a foreign environment where they felt like outsiders. They learned a foreign language, lived among strangers, and asked questions that even adults were afraid to answer. One of these children is actor Mārtiņš Vilsons, who was born in exile in the Magadan region of Russia to the family of Zenta Vilsone and Rolands Čehovičs. In this documentary, director Dzintra Geka portrays his life story as a personal testimony to the fate of the exiled Latvians, their search for identity, and their return to a contradictory reality.

In 1941 almost 4,000 children under the age of 16 were deported from Latvia to Siberia. Some returned to Latvia, many perished, and many were left in exile, where they had their own children. Nadežda Āriņa and Anatolijs Taurenis were born in the 1950s in permanently frozen Igarka in Siberia. Their mothers had been childhood friends in Latvia before their deportation. Nadja returned to Latvia where she now sells souvenirs, but for Taurenis Latvia is still a dream. In 2007, Nadežda heads to Igarka to visit Taurenis.

The film follows the last years of songwriter Harald Sīmanis' life, showing the true values of life – love, friendship, and the ability to be creative until your last breath. The film uses unique photo and video material from the 80s and 90s.

Portrait of Signe Baumane. About creative people, obsession and fixation with their work, huge egos without which nothing gets done, but alongside them are others whose lives are willingly or unwillingly subordinated... The train of alienation is picking up speed, and it seems that it is impossible to jump off without painful injuries.

The 1949 deportations were one of the most tragic aspects of contemporary Latvian history. 43,000 people were deported to Siberia for life, with 10,000 infants and children, elderly people, and even people raised from their deathbed among them. 4,941 persons perished. Every fourth deportee was a child. Every sixth deportee was 60 or older.

The story of the secret of self-creativity, the loneliness of the soul, the meridians of con-sciousness and the scope of man. Ilmārs Blumbergs (1943-2016) is a concept in life than can be classically proven if we analyze his work in set design, poster art, painting and multimedia work. The personality of Blumbergs, however is a shifting and intangible material which ensures superior value, wonderfulness and intimacy to all that he created. Those who analyze his art and world perceptions, recognize the work as seeming to come from antiquity, but it can never be catalogued or recorded in bookkeeping. How fortunate that it also cannot be consumed.

In the documentary, director Dzintra Geka has created an engaging portrait of Latvian painter Juris Jurjāns. The film delves into his world, embodying a visually rich narrative of freedom in art, life energy, and virtuosity. As always, Juris Jurjāns chooses beauty as the leading theme of his artist and refuses to conform to the rules dictated by old age. He continues to indulge in fine drinks, puffs cigars, and paints. Every day he travels to his studio, where he finds solace in his canvases.

The children who were sent to Siberia in 1941 have not seen their fathers – in their memories they recollect: “My father was arrested, he was sent to Vyatlag camp. He died there in March, 1942. He was not convicted. Father was tried in the autumn of 1942, when he was already dead, Moscow Troika verdict: 10 years in prison and confiscation of property...”The railcar moves along overgrown rails. For 70 years, the twelve participants of the journey have wanted to go to the places from where their fathers did not return. Among the harsh nature the tension on their faces shows.

The story of the world-renowned Liepāja-born cinematographer Eduard Tisse, whose wife was convinced it was he who created all the famous films of Sergei Eisenstein. The creators of the film develop the story and cross the lines drawn by biography, trying to understand the magic interaction between a cinematographer and a director, between the cinematographer and the object in front of his camera.

The film is a reflection of the Latvian people in the year of the country's centenary – viewers will easily recognize themselves and their personal stories in its scenes. Starting on New Year's Eve, January 1, when the first centenary baby, little Jete, arrives in the world to the sound of fireworks, and ending with piano music playing over a snow-covered and sunlit panorama of Latvia, the film captures the lives of hundreds of people. In addition, by filming each of the 365 days, sometimes with several cameras, and observing the processes of nature, in the countryside and in urban environments, in the lives of individuals, families and society, the cameramen have vividly captured the different facets of this story through the lens of the camera: the beautiful, the bitter, the grand, the meaningless, the comical and the absurd.

J. Čakste, G. Zemgals, A. Kviesis, K. Ulmanis. What were they like? How much did each of them manage to unite the nation, how much did they manage to oppose the oppression, greed and brutality of the giant empires surrounding our small republic as a legal entity? Did they all have personal lives? The institution of the presidency in action through the daily agenda of President Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga.

Interviews were conducted over a seven year period with 670 people who were deported to Siberia as children in 1941. Fragments of their memories form a mosaic revealing their past experiences of losing fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters. Time heals, but nothing is forgotten and the stories must be told.

On this date, more than 42,129 people were deported from Latvia to Siberia. In great secrecy, 31 trains with cattle cars were sent out in a single day. The deportations of 1949 were, in a sense, even more cruel than those of 1941, as one in four of those deported for life was a child, and one in six was over 60 years old. The film "The Distant Land of Siberia. Why March 25, 1949?" will tell about the reasons for the deportations and show the places of exile in Siberia. People who were deported as children will share their memories.

Every year on June 14, the Siberian Children Foundation goes on a trip to Siberia to remember their loved ones who stayed there. Along with the trips, they've made documentaries and held conferences. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the foundation's activities. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, no in-person activities were planned this year, but a documentary film entitled "Children of Siberia. We Remember," which depicts the gatherings of those deported to Siberia in 1941, reflects archival material from previously filmed movies, and reveals the most vivid moments from legendary expeditions over the course of 20 years.

This is a film about the return of an individual to the Far North, and to the past. Agapitova, Igarka – the vast lands of Siberia, to which Ilmārs Knaģis and 4,000 other children from Latvia were deported in 1941. In the autumn of 1942, 700 mothers and children of different nationalities were sent to the death island of Agapitova. Only 60 survived, among them six Latvian children – Biruta Kazaka, Pāvels Kliesbergs, Venta Grāvīte, Ilmārs Grāvītis, Pēteris Bērziņš and Valentīna Voiciša. The question remains: Why did this happen? And why is no one to blame?

In January 2011, Latvia commemorated the 20th anniversary of the tragic events that occurred in January 1991. Film producer Andris Slapiņš was killed, and cameraman Gvido Zvaigzne was fatally injured on the night of January 20th and died in hospital two weeks later. He was a young man whose talent had not yet fully flourished. His story, however, contains elements that make it not only possible to demonstrate his personal tragedy, but also the problematic existence of a young and creative person during an era when everything was crumbling around him. Destiny kept Gvido Zvaigzne from finishing his route, but the events and values of his life represent a model of his generation’s efforts.

Igarka – a town beyond the Arctic Circle, where Roberts, Andrejs, Nadežda, Anatolijs, and Inta were born in the 1950s. Their parents had been exiled there as children in 1941. Some managed to return to Latvia in 1956, others later. Nadja returned to Latvia with her little daughter only in 1993; her mother remained in the eternal frost. Anatolijs Taurenis did not return; Nadežda went to Igarka and found him. Inta's son went to his grandmother's place of exile because he wants to publish a book. The stories of the children of Igarka are varied. They do not want to talk about their childhood; the memories of their parents and grandparents are painful. They survived, and that is the main thing. Nadja calls her classmates in Russia every day. Others do not speak, some hang up because there is a war going on. Putin and television have convinced them.

A documentary historical account of the fate of four thousand children deported in 1941. Only one in ten survived and can bear witness. We have filmed 180 interviews, and the work continues.