21/08/2023 - The Latvian screenings will take place on 23 and 24 August at Riga’s K Suns cinema, and the programmed films include Parade, Kalev, Poop, Spring and the Others, and The Poet

For the seventh time, at the end of August and on the dates of the legendary Baltic Way, the Baltic Film Days will take place across the three Baltic republics. On 23 and 24 August, free cinema screenings will be offered to the audiences of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, who will be able to enjoy the latest films from their neighbouring countries.

In Riga, the Baltic Film Days will be held at the K Suns cinema, and the programme will include two Lithuanian films and two Estonian ones. The Baltic Film Days are an initiative established by the three countries’ national film institutions – the National Film Centre of Latvia, the Lithuanian Film Centre and the Estonian Film Institute.

In all three countries, Baltic Film Days will take place at the same time, with each nation showing two films from its neighbours. Estonian and Lithuanian audiences will both enjoy Viesturs Kairišs’s award-winning coming-of-age drama January [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], which will be screened alongside Signe Baumane’s animated flick My Love Affair With Marriage [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Signe Baumane
film profile] in Lithuania and with Elza Gauja’s black comedy Keep Smiling, Mom! in Estonia.

In Latvia, the Baltic Film Days kick off on Wednesday 23 August, with screenings of two Lithuanian features. The 6 pm opening will host the comedy Parade [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Titas Laucius
film profile] (2022), Titas Laucius’s debut feature. The film revolves around Migle and Eimantas, who divorced 26 years ago, but who still need to annul their marriage through the church court so that the man can marry his new girlfriend.

On the same day, during the 8 pm screening, The Poet [+see also:
trailer
interview: Giedrius Tamoševičius
film profile] by Giedrius Tamoševičius and Vytautas V Landsbergis will be shown. The picture was crowned Best Baltic Film at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival last November. The story takes place right after World War II and centres on a talented poet called Kostas, who is forced to cooperate with the Soviet security service. His task is to infiltrate the partisan unit in order to spy on it and betray it, but little by little, Kostas begins to understand and accept the goals and motivations of the partisan struggle, so he is soon faced with a dilemma – whether to listen to his heart and join the fight for the freedom of Lithuania, or to become a traitor and build a poet’s career under the Soviet regime.

On Thursday, two Estonian movies will be screened. The 6 pm session will host “an animated film for the whole family” based on the motifs of the works of Andrus Kivirähk (an Estonian writer also popular in Latvia), titled Poop, Spring and the Others. The picture includes five different stories using different animation techniques, told from the point of view of different directors, but they are united by the writer’s own presence and warm humour. The film is dubbed in Latvian.

Next, the 8 pm screening will host Ove Musting’s debut feature, Kalev [+see also:
trailer
film profile]. It tells a story about basketball, freedom and victory set in 1991, when the history of Estonia and Latvia went hand in hand, both in sports and in the Singing Revolution. The film was partly shot in Latvia, and Latvian actors such as Jēkabs Reinis, Artūrs Putniņš and Andris Keišs also star.

Speaking about the importance of this initiative, National Film Centre of Latvia head Dita Rietuma told Cineuropa: “The Baltic Film Days are already a successful tradition, established through cooperation among the three Baltic film centres. Film professionals from Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania cooperate a great deal, and many films from our region are co-productions with neighbouring countries. However, the general audience quite often lacks the information about the recent films made by our closest neighbours. In recent years, the situation has improved, with more and more films from Lithuania and Estonia being screened in Latvian cinemas, or made available on TV and on VoD platforms, but stronger efforts are needed to promote our own cinematic cultures and co-productions across the Baltic states. The Baltic Film Days are just one step in this process, but surely an important one.”

The Baltic Film Days in Latvia are being organised by the National Film Centre of Latvia, and are supported by the Lithuanian Film Centre and the Estonian Film Institute. Admission to all screenings is free, and no prior registration is required.