Agris Māsēns

A family film based on the book Bille by Vizma Belševica. An extraordinary, lonely yet spiritually strong little girl attempts to comprehend the adult world, which in her eyes is very contradictory, and to prove her own value despite the ignorance and lack of appreciation by her family in late 1930s. Bille tries to find an escape in her vivid imagination.

Latvia is governed by a strange ruler with a pig’s snout who calls himself Mr. Snout. Loath to being filmed himself and to filmmaking in general, he has locked up all positive heroes in an effort to prevent filming from taking place. The few survivors hope for the return of the Latvian folk hero Bear-slayer, who vanished into the river many centuries ago. In these harsh times, Bear-slayer rises from the water again to fight Mr. Snout. This film is a criticism of how the inaction of the Latvian government has brought Latvian filmmaking close to extinction.

The film dramatizes November 11, 1919- a crucial date in the battle for Latvian independence. A year after the end of the official hostilities of WWI, a renegade German general and troops remain outside the Latvian capital. Latvian riflemen, most of them inexperienced volunteers, somehow managed to defeat a larger, better-armed force of German and Russian mercenaries.

The film is based on true events, it tells the stories of two outstanding personalities of the 20th century – Sergei Eisenstein and Isaiah Berlin, who were both born and spent their childhood in Riga but soon had to leave the city. The film follows the lives of the two characters during the turbulent first half of the 20th century, telling how one of them becomes “the greatest film director of his generation” in the totalitarian Soviet Union, and the other “the greatest thinker of his generation” in liberal Great Britain.

A family film about an adventure of kids discovering and safeguarding the mystery of an old garden.