Mistrus Media

Edith is a curiosity-driven journalist and single mother. Solo parenting proves to be complicated, but when the identity of the man who donated the sperm that got her pregnant surfaces, she seeks him out under the false pretext of interviewing him about his company.

Lost in remotest part of Eastern Europe, Sam is a foreigner, searching for his biological father Lagzdins where a minor road accident leads to a chance meeting with a pig-farmer's daughter, who captures him and makes him a forced laborer on the farm.

World War II, occupied Soviet Union. István Semetka is a simple Hungarian farmer who serves as a Sub-Lieutenant in a special unit scouting for partisan groups. On their way to a remote village, his company falls under enemy fire. As the commander is killed, Semetka has to overcome his fears and take command of the unit as he is dragged into a chaos that he cannot control.

As a young Soviet student in 1978, Ieva could not have predicted that a holiday visit to her father, Imants Lesinskis, then working in the Soviet mission at the United Nations in New York City, would irreversibly split her life in two. Entangled in a dark spy game, Ieva is forced to leave her former life behind, never to see her mother or her homeland of Latvia again. Pulling back the curtain on the shady behind-the-scenes world of the Cold War, this film tells a daughter's dramatic story of her double-agent father, exploring their relationship against the backdrop of events which have their roots over four decades ago. In order to find herself and understand the game she was part of, Ieva sets out on a journey to the past, confronting family secrets, lies and betrayal.

A rural doctor is urgently summoned to attend to a gravely ill young boy. Grappling with the pressures of his profession and the demands of his household, he embarks on a tumultuous journey that forces him to confront the darker facets of human frailty, both physical and moral.

The 14th of June 1941, Soviet-occupied Latvia. Without warning, the authorities break into the house of Melanie and her husband Alexander, and force them to leave everything behind. Together with more than 15 000 Latvians, Melanie and her son get deported to Siberia. In her fight against cold, famine and cruelty, she only gains new strength through the letters she writes to Alexander, full of hope for a free Latvia and a better tomorrow.

Mareks (32) is a young taxi driver in Riga working hard to provide for his son. He is looking forward to spending the weekend with him when an envelope full of cash is stolen from his taxi. With a debt to repay to his short-tempered boss, Mareks needs to earn the money back fast. He drives to the airport and hotels in the hopes of getting some well-paying customers. However, the competition for clients is fierce. Mareks ignores the established rules and upsets the delicate balance between rival taxi companies. As the morning approaches getting the money seems to be the least of Mareks problems.

Trying to make a professional impression, the teacher of the 9th grade Dārta organises a parents' school meeting, but the parents' childish behaviour turns the gathering into a disaster, becoming the biggest challenge of Dārta's career so far. The new teacher prepares for the meeting, while the parents arrive late - so does the businessman Jānis, the president of the parent's school council Žanete arrives with flowers and a gift; the spouses of an open marriage Valts and Laine playing "truth or dare", while the recently divorced Maija and Raivo exchange barbs. The planning of the children's graduation turns into an absurd escalation of conflicts between the parents.

Three young men head to an isolated country house to shoot a film that they hope will bring them fame. They have no experience, but possess the will to change their lives. They make various attempts, but none seem to work. The team comes to a creative impasse, but the stakes are too high to give up. In hopes of drawing out their talents, they spend more and more time chipping away at each other. Previously hidden character traits come to light further complicating their relationship and the making of the film. Soon it's each man for himself. Just when the experiment seems utterly failed, one of them is discovered dead. It's not clear whether it's accidental, suicide or murder, but a real body in the scene satisfies - this could be the start of The Film.

While current events are being discussed in the news and the residents of Riga are plagued by their everyday worries, cats are fully occupied with aimlessly wandering around staircases, offices, and apartments, completely indifferent to the absurd hustle and bustle of our civilization. This clever pseudo-documentary play on words comments on the role of subjectivity in our perception of the world around us.

15 August 1990. Viktor Tsoy, the Soviet Union’s most famous rock star, leader of the band Kino, a symbol of freedom and change, dies in an accident on a Latvian highway. The bus driver who was involved in the tragic accident will bring his body back to Leningrad. A party of mourners – Tsoy’s wife and her new boyfriend, his mistress, his producer, his young son and an obsessed photographer – are part of the trip back. This is going to be a long trip, the perfect occasion for an agonizing unravelling of love, jealousy, ambition, and greed.

Based on a Lithuanian writer’s novel “Breathing Into Marble” the film focuses on the challenges of a modern family. It is a romantic ballad with the plot of a thriller. Izabele and Liudas – itellectuals living in a homestead near a big city and raising the son, Gailius, who has a case of epilepsy and is smarter than most children his age. Izabele convinces her husband to adopt a six-year-old boy who is unable to put down roots in this new family and always fights for mother’s attention.

Deniss is a Russian-speaking young man working at a fast food chain and spending his days in a small, gloomy apartment where all the things still remind him of his dead grandmother. Once a week he takes the stage, becoming a stand-up comedian. His jokes come from his life, which might be called dull as well as bleak, and, as he puts it, his ‘uninteresting biography’.

Žanis Lipke, an ordinary blue-collar worker in Latvia, embarks on a covert operation. Despite his family’s hardship under successive Soviet and German occupations, Lipke tries to save local Jews from Nazi persecution and certain death, moving them from the Riga ghetto to an underground bunker hidden on his property.

The film Soup is the story of a trip in search of lost time. Only instead of Marcel Proust’s Madeleine cookie, the chicken soup by Podravka, well remembered by many generations in former Soviet countries and in Eastern Europe, is the triggering element.

A boy's body is discovered in a peat field, and a local drunk confesses to a decades-old murder. Policeman Broze reopens the case and is forced to confront his own role in the tragic game played by boys 30 years ago—a day he can't remember or forget.

Just like in a focus of a lens the northern suburbs of Riga show the opportunities, the contradictions and risks characteristic for each highly developed civilization in its in-between zone of "post" - in this case - post-Soviet, post-industrial, postmodern period. And just like any other coastal area Daugava delta can offer not only fresh fish and wind but also wide horizon and endless sky.

In 1937, silent film star Maria Leiko travels to USSR upon learning of the birth of her granddaughter. But when she discovers the tragic circumstances of that event, KGB agents persuade her to remain in the country. Leiko abandons her cinema career to instead join Skatuve, the Latvian State Theatre in Moscow. Soon she discovers that she is being manipulated by the government amid its purges of political enemies. As a network of traitors, informers, and NKVD agents surround her, she must choose between family and career, and between her ideals and the lies of Stalin’s totalitarian regime.