Videoteca

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Art Born In Agony 2025
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.

Centre of the Spiral 2025
The carelessness of summer residents, relentless sun, bare skin, water, and blood. Sudden injury of Kiril's girlfriend rips the temporal and spatial boundaries in his hazy consciousness. Struggling to find a way and help his girlfriend, he tries to distinguish the harsh reality from the acid dream, where his parents' country house still reigns in peace, surrounded by closest friends enjoying tranquil summer days.

Magic Wardrobe Song 2024
While playing hide and seek, children discover unprecedented objects, places, and creatures behind the doors of an antique wardrobe! They find themselves in an unexpected universe full of colours and sounds, inhabited by beings both real and only encountered in fantasy. They, too, hide and seek each other throughout the year.

The End 2024
An artist, a zoologist, a nature scholar, and a sheep farmer working in the IT sector, who also happens to be an astronomy enthusiast, all view the demise of biological bodies differently. Forest carrion, larvae under tombstones, sheep in the barn, layers of feathers and bones, and shimmering green flies on decaying flesh – amidst all this is a human trying to understand their place in cosmology. In this grand tapestry of transformation, what is the human species: part of a cycle or more akin to superhuman?

Wizard of the Door 2024
This tale, full to the brim with the magic of animation, offers a glimpse into the mischief that unfolds when the dull task of tidying up your room is interrupted by the appearance of a wizard. However, sometimes play can get dangerous – and then mum and dad have to embark on a rescue mission.

My Mommy Isn’t Afraid 2024
In a very ordinary building, in a very ordinary apartment there lives a supermom who can do anything and fears nothing – except thunder and lightning. But a little superhero comes to rescue, and all the fear disappears. A tribute to mothers who can do anything. And how lovely that your supermom will have her own song now!

Everything That Isn’t Allowed 2024
Raisin hornets, chocolate cities, broccoli forests, gingerbread dragons, walking lollipops and other sweets come to life and sparkle in a hundred bright, sugary colours. Forbidden treats and activities chase each other in a playful, chaotic whirl. But why are they forbidden? Maybe the forbidding should be turned into an invitation to explore the world in an active and creative way?

TESA MAN 2024
“TESA MAN” is a music film – a poetic exploration of the relationship between collective creativity and the natural world. The film blurs the lines between reality and imagination, inviting viewers into an animistic experience where music performed by the band Tesa in a frozen Baltic landscape attempts to transform air, steam, ash and clay into something much more alive.

Tango of Life 2024
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...

Sacrificial Lamb 2023
In this allegory about paradise lost, Ildze yearns to find peace and fulfilment by moving from the city to the countryside. However, her thoughts are consumed by the illness of her child, her estrangement from her husband and his absence. In the meantime, Ildze’s grief is enveloped by nature’s promise of comfort, which never arrives. She tries to understand where to find the beginning of the cycle of sacrifice and where to find its end. And who is her victim, or is it herself?

Laidi 2023
The documentary film Laidi tells the story of the last year of Laidi Primary school in Laidi Manor, southwestern Latvia. Ieva Epnere came to Laidi in autumn 2021 as part of a creative residency to learn about the history and stories of the parish and to find inspiration for a new artwork. During the residency, the idea of collaborating with the school's theatre group was born, and together with choreographer Elīna Gediņa the movement performance Laidu leģendas (eng. Tales of Laidi) was created. Parallel to the development of the idea, the artist learned about the decision of the Kuldīga County Council to close the school. The disturbing news prompted Epnere to document the situation. The result is a documentary film spanning all seasons and connecting the everyday life of the school with preparations for a reunion that will also be a farewell.

Einarrative 2022
Instead of Einars Pelšs' eighth poetry book, he publishes his collected works, but the buyer of the book receives an ordinary brick. He translates the authors of the Russian Golden Age and publishes them under his own name, challenging the boundaries of literature. Is a poet who makes fun of art unique or exactly what we expect from contemporary authors? Einarrative is an extraordinary story that portrays the narrative of the life of Einārs Pelšs. In the film, this narrative is an experience of contrasting changes both in its visual style and in Einars’ poetic works and personality, allowing him to get involved in the depiction of the narrative himself, making the film as Einārs Pelšs' audiovisual collected works.

Hekabe's Question 2022
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?

River of Fear 2022 star_border 5.7
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 Nap 2022
Mother takes her eight-year-old daughter Antonia to a children’s creativity camp. Antonia is not happy about having to spend time under close adult supervision. On their way, she spots a sign saying ”The Robots Have Escaped!” The sign unleashes Antonia’s imagination and grows into a fantasy of how exciting her stay in the camp might turn out to be. Of course, Antonia’s and the robots’ paths intersect at the camp, where they intend to steal children’s dreams during their afternoon nap to convert them into ingenious commercials. Thriller-like events unfold. Thanks to Antonia’s inquisitive and rebellious nature and with her best friend and favourite toy Yeti by her side, the robots’ intention is averted.

Russia vs. Russia 2022 star_border 6.7
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?

In 2 Times 2022
Vilis is a 6 year old boy who lives between two time zones. In the morning he goes to a preschool in Riga, Latvia where he sings, draws, learns to read and plays. In the afternoon he is already a first grader, logging in the Zoom class in a New York public school. While most of the world is worried that school closures and remote learning during the pandemic has left kids without education, the pandemic has given Vilis a chance to study in two schools at once. Vilis’ mom has been documenting these weird times on her phone. The experience in both schools will be challenged when Vilis starts the first grade this fall for the second time in his hometown.

The Rossellinis 2021 star_border 7.8
A laid-back journey in search of one of the world’s most fascinating families, observed and examined from within its most intimate relationships, where the truth and depth of a memoir meet the ironic tone of an indie comedy.

skin-deep 2021 star_border 2
An observational reflection on the body and existing in one’s social as well as physical “skin”. “To break out of their traumas and the ingrained ideas of normality and the fictional ideal of femininity, and to make their bodies truly their own – this is the goal of two young women who use their bodies as a tool of protest and a work of art,” writes the filmmaker.

The Ring of Fire 2021
New performers have recently moved into the 130-year-old building of the Riga Circus. Having built a stage in the stables, actors Ance, Āris, Klāvs, Reinis and the other members of the theatre company Kvadrifrons are reinvigorating and preserving the tradition of live art in the circus. The name of the group is an acronym in Latvian that conveys their ethos: they are an organisation that can chill with their friends, have bursts of amazing creativity, and whose members are far from unintelligent. And all the while, the strong smell of elephants wafts through the building. Here and there, the life of the previous inhabitants makes itself known. Soon shamanistic rituals alternate with clowning around, fortune-telling with illusion juggling, stagecraft with personal choices. Then suddenly, out of Nothing… emerges Theatre.

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Adreses 2015
With the eyes of ordinary people, Adreses explore successful and less successful or even scandalous examples of architecture and environment building. Martins Kibilds goes to two places or addresses, every time taking a different person with him – without professional experience in architecture, but with a keen desire to explore, think and share impressions with the audience.

Food Markets: In the Belly of the City 2013 star_border 2
Going to the local market when we visit a foreign city is something we all love to do. More people visit them in one day than all the city's art museums put together. Markets attract us for their colours, smells, people, sounds and taste.

TE! 2012 star_border 10