Trickster Pictures

What happens in the eyes of a 100-year-old filmmaker? Rolands Kalniņš, one of the great masters of Latvian cinema, sits down to have his photo taken and looks straight in the lens. Kalniņš’ life has spanned an authoritarian regime, a world war, long years under Soviet occupation and censorship, and retirement in independent Latvia. His films have been censored, destroyed, found and restored. But here, like Herz Frank once did with a child, for ten minutes we shall observe the micro-emotions of a man who has dedicated his life to film. Confronted directly by the tool of his trade, the camera. As we face Kalniņš eye to eye, we hear the sounds of his present, and the memories of his past.

Although Nauris could use a tractor from his partner in crime, thief Andrejs, Nauris dreams of his own tractor. Two ordinary country men go to the usual scrap metal stealing endeavors until they drink too much, initiating a dispute that turns into a brutal murder and a struggle for survival. The film is based on real events.

Through the prism of three distinct characters, the 24-year-old director conveys an intimate and sensitive portrait of his own generation, wanderers looking for their place in the new and uncertain world. Dancer Tanya moves to Mississippi where she finds love with a paraplegic wheelchair basketball trainer who is more than 20 years her senior. App developer Tomass abandons the life he had before and becomes a world-travelling digital nomad. Avant-garde publisher Valters collects toilet seats in a poetically performative attempt to overcome past trauma.

A dreamlike cinematic collage exploring the life, times and choices of the Russian avant-garde theatermaker Vsevolod Meyerhold. An innovative artist becomes a tool in the hands of the socialist revolution.

Two teenage girls, Yin Jia and Tong Tong, live together in this colour-drenched vision of Changsha, China. When Tong Tong drifts away and falls in with a drug dealer, Yin Jia’s love for her means she’ll risk everything to keep Tong Tong by her side.

Two border patrol agents come across a mysterious crashed van near the border of Latvia and Russia.

Since the 1950s nuclear weapon tests, every inhabitant of the planet carries a portion of the radioactive isotope carbon-14 within them. This is just one of many testimonies of how military processes leave their mark everywhere, not just where they can be seen by satellites. In this film, war is viewed not merely as a state of armed conflict, but rather as a broad set of actions, symbols, and phenomena whose impact extends across time and space, affecting even the most mundane parts of our lives. The film is the author's attempt to reflect on various forms of violence and the impacts of the soft power of imperialism through an associative journey across memories and modern-day Riga.

Sisters Ernesta and Justė, along with their husbands Lukas and Tomas, gather at their parents’ summer house. It’s been a while since they’ve all been together and the children are delighted to be spending the last warm days by the lake. But an intense weekend soon unravels, thrusting both families into a radically altered reality where time is limited and emotional issues must be solved amidst growing heartache.

An investigative journalist decides to take down an esoteric organization based around the implementation of structured water.

In a world where insects have become extinct, Lexi works at her uncle's insectarium, mending and preserving the valuable specimens.

Self-proclaimed cryptocurrency expert Fatso is a middle-aged curmudgeon frittering away his days with video games and conspiracy theory videos. Obsessed with the concept of eternal life since childhood, Fatso experiments with various quack theories in the hopes of becoming immortal, despite his miserablism. When Egons and Carlos inexplicably appear outside of his remote woodland trailer, asking for an invitation inside, they bring glad tidings that he has recently been selected as “the chosen one.” Appealing to his nature as a “cowardly, passive, antisocial sluggard,” who has squandered his humanity so thoroughly that the transition to undead would prove practically seamless, the friendly duo make promises of a new, more fulfilling life as a vampire.

After the end of the Russo-Ukrainian war, Roman, a struggling artist from Kyiv, has to grapple with wartime trauma, alcoholism and an advancing midlife crisis. Seeking comfort and desperately wanting to leave his wartorn homeland, he learns of a an exciting new job opportunity, a recreation of three famous political assasinations pivotal to Ukrainian history.

Norwegian-raised Latvian teenager Sophie sets off alone to Latvia to meet the father she never knew, a journey that forces her to confront buried family secrets and the tangled roots of her identity.

Twelve-year-old Kir is travelling to a sanatorium in West Ukraine alongside his mother Olga. Surrounded by Carpathian mountains and with new unexpected acquaintances in their lives, each deals with a family trauma and tries to overcome an unresolved grief—the boy’s father, a Ukrainian Armed Forces soldier, went missing in the frontline.

Laine is a college girl from a bland middle-class suburb in Latvia. As Laine’s father distances himself from his crumbling marriage and his family, Laine is unable to cope with the separation and discovers the edgy Riga party scene, where she falls in love with seasoned raver Gunda. Going from rave to rave, the girls journey into a drug-fuelled underworld of anarchy, freedom and exploration.

A problem that every film director has faced – how do you film something that does not exist? A director is making a documentary about an actor and his stalker – but the stalker never appears. As the deadline approaches, unusual steps must be taken.

A runaway bride, a young peasant, mysterious illusionists and a manic investigator become entwined in a murderous affair at a Baltic German baron's manor.

After his mother’s death, Dzintars Bumbiers (34) struggles with the large collection of dahlias he has inherited. Dzintars made a promise that he would keep the garden. How-ever, the reality strikes with new challenges and the dahlias hide his contempt. Dzintars considers the commitment to the dahlias is the reason his mother left her sons aside as they were growing up. As a result, two of his brothers have died, one is in prison, while Dzintars was bullied as a child and can’t start relationships with women.

An emotional journey of two diametrically opposed societies whose collision reveals the ambiguity of social class, identity and reality. Through a performance at the Opera House, a message about privileged and marginalised communities is revealed, shedding light on the human need for understanding.

A documentary about a 78-year-old Indian woman in New York who is the world's most passionate theatergoer. Nicki Cochrane has been seeing a play every day for more than 25 years, acquiring free tickets using a variety of ingenious means.