VFS Films

They're called water carriers, domestics, 'gregarios', 'Sancho Panzas' of professional cycling. Always at the back of the group, with no right for a personal victory. These wonderful losers are the true warriors of professional cycling.

North Korean women meet South Korean men in a fascinating and often surprising look at love, business and geopolitics.

Psychological thriller connecting three different people in the mysterious vortex, trying to untangle the dramatic fight of border between the truth and fantasy. Rob, a former real estate broker, unemployed, starts following a strange Japanese woman, Oki, who constantly moves from house to house. He drags his roommate Wylie into the investigation during which they have to face the dark past and curse of Oki, while dealing with the history of their own.

When Mikhail Gorbachev rose to power in 1985, his reform policy sparked an independence movement in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. But as cries for help from the Baltic States were met with silence from the international community at large, two small nations – Iceland and Denmark – answered the call, motivated by the personal connections of their foreign ministers, Jón Baldvin Hannibalsson and Uffe Elleman Jensen.

Ramin, an ex-wrestler who once won seven matches in 55 seconds, lives alone in the east Georgian town of Kvareli. Long ago he fell in love with a girl with whom he was estranged soon after he met her. Now, at 75, still unmarried but full of life, he travels to a remote village to seek her out. This film presents Ramin's journey through the Georgian landscape and through the memories of this man with a old aged body and an unbeatable heart.

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?

A local guide is asked to lead a group of influencers along the river of a remote valley. As they get deeper into the wilderness, their venture takes a frightening turn.

The code to unlocking this feature documentary is 1949, the year the director was born, and also the year of the return of Soviet repressions to Latvia. The film tells a very personal story against the background of less visited historic events – the death of director’s father due to the KGB repressions, which is closely linked to the devious game Soviet Latvia’s KGB played against Swedish-British-American spy agencies.

A group of sex workers and brothel youth form a film production house in the Kalighat redlight area, Kolkata, India. Despite the opposition from the conservative society, they are determined to become filmmakers, resist prostitution among the second generation, survive through the art of cinema, and aspire to transform the redlight area into a professional film colony in the post-pandemic time.

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...

There is a popular Latvian folksong which begins with the phrase "I was singing out high on a mountain". The irony of it is that according to physical geography there are no mountains in Latvia. So what exactly is the place where the Latvians are "singing out"? It may be safely said that it's the same place where they are skiing. That's how we make mountains out of molehills...Snow-covered mountains, to be sure.

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.

A gripping journey into the world of Latvian rock legend Juris Kulakovs. The film follows a young filmmaker as she uncovers the essence of the enigmatic musician through his tumultuous life, music, and eccentric flat. Delve into the Soviet-era struggles and post-independence triumphs through candid conversations with both Kulakovs and those closest to him. An exploration of art, passion, and perseverance in the face of adversity.

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?

Under the loving but firm guidance of an old fan turned director and cultural diplomat, and to the surprise of a whole world, the ex-Yugoslavian cult band Laibach becomes the first rock group ever to perform in the fortress state of North Korea.

A person’s face and eyes preserve experience better than any document or recorded memoir. Particularly if a person has experienced as much as the well-known dissident Lidija Lasmane-Doroņina. Actually, she does not even think of herself as a dissident. She received her three terms in prisons and labour camps – fourteen years in all – as punishment not for underground struggle but for daring to remain true to her principles, convictions and faith. The ideals Lidija obtained as a child – the idyllic image of Latvia as an independent country, strong family values and faith in God as a moral measuring stick for any action. Her eyes are bright even today, at the age of 91, and they look at this world full of life.

Apatity, a far-north industrial town in Russia, first came into being as a USSR concentration camp. Although its environment is at the brink of ecological disaster, the people here still believe in the state’s promise of immortality that can be gained through sacrificial service to the fatherland. This is how the elite in a totalitarian state buy a person’s will, strength, talent and, indeed, life, turning the human being into another resource that is as faceless as a grey lump of ore. ‘I cannot fight big corporations or state structures with a film. But I hope that there is someone in the darkness of the cinema whose heart will get a bit warmer after seeing it,’ says the director. The larger part of the film was shot during the polar night.

Direct and meticulous observation of interpersonal relations is a classic subject in documentary films. In this film the title of which alludes to “Hamlet”, we will observe the birth of compassion in people. Compassion is something that has to be dealt with in very rigorous terms, something that needs to be stripped of the layers of clichés that this word has amassed over the years. Is it always a true feeling or just an imitation? How does a deep compassion spring forth? Who are the true “masters of compassion” and what are they like?

Three elderly country bachelors idle away their time amidst semi-wild nature, closer to birds and pond fish than to humans.

The world seen through the eyes of children. The action takes place in Karosta, the former military port of Liepaja city – however, it is not that important, as the film could take place anywhere. We observe children playing on the beach, revealing the core of Pakalnina’s work: perceiving and transmitting emotions.