Studija Centrums

A film about the alarming events of the autumn of 1919, when the fate of modern-day, post WWI Europe was decided in Riga. Three world views clashed on the banks of the Daugava River – a national state for Latvians as proclaimed a year earlier, the Bolshevik revolutionary idea, and the resurrection of a monarchy. The reactionary monarchy interests were represented by German General Graf Rudiger von der Goltz, and Russian Colonel Pavel Bermont.

The film is based on the diary of Arkus Gunārs Reninger about his experiences in Salaspils concentration camp in 1944, which are visually partially covered by archive materials and prisoners’ drawings, but mostly the viewer will see the specific location today. A documentary observation of a memorial nowadays, where children and adults come in groups and watch individually, with interest or get bored, emotionally react or indifferently distance themselves, sunk into phones, disconnected from the outside world… Film will tell about our time no less than Reninger’s notes about what happened in this place almost 80 years ago.

This film tells about the most striking and tragic phenomenon during the development of self-awareness of the Latvian nation – the Latvian Riflemen. The first Daugavgrīva regiment, the second Riga, third Kurland, fifth Semigallian, sixth Tukums, seventh Bauska and eighth Valmiera regiments of Latvian Riflemen – this was Latvia before its statehood. The film is a historically chronological study beginning with the formation of the Riflemen battalions and their first battles until the end of the Civil War in Russia, when a large part of the Riflemen returned home to the recently established state of Latvia. This is a story about common people challenged by the Big Epoch that determined their lives.

The full-length documentary is a story about painter Biruta Delle, who is of the so-called “Uncensored” generation in Latvian art. It is a story of loneliness and nonconformism, and great talent that dramatically eats up everything else in a her life... but Biruta Delle continues to paint, becoming increasingly isolated from society.

Over the years, eighty-year-old Irina Pilke, nicknamed the Little Bird, has depicted the events of her life as sketches in diaries. The pages reveal the experiences of World War II, love and separation, and a subtly ironic view on the events in the Soviet Union and among its society. The Little Bird looks at the world from the viewpoint of a small creature rather than from a perspective of power and politics which may be the reason her life story seems so incredibly heartwarming, familiar, and true to the tiniest detail.

In the early 1920s, soon after the Latvian republic was established, about 2000 Baptists immigrated to Brazil to await the end of the world. It did not come, and Latvians created an island of Christianity in the middle of a rainforest. The Latvian language is still spoken in the Vārpa settlement, but the younger generations have left the area.

Fridrihs Vesmanis (1875–1941) – the first Chairman of the Saeima (Parliament) of the Republic of Latvia, Latvia’s envoy to Great Britain, and a Supreme Court senator – was arrested and deported by the Soviets in June 1941. It was forbidden to mention his name during the years of the Soviet occupation. Only after Latvia regained its independence, his descendants found his autobiography, which reads like a last letter to the future Latvia. This film is dedicated to the inception of the Latvian state and the centenary of its Constitution and Parliament.