Igors Nazarenko

A group of teenagers riding in a car for a picnic. On the way, one of the guys accidentally shoots a kidnapped girl from a car overtaken on the phone. The guy decides not to tell anyone anything, and soon terrible things start happening to him.

Film takes us deep inside the world of Latvian teenagers in 90s: combining the intimate diary of a teenager Jānis trying to find himself by joining a subculture, as well as a skillful, detailed and almost documentary-like depiction of the beginnings of the second independence of Latvia. “Jelgava ’94” is a portrait of a generation in the 1990s who are searching for their own identity and are fans of alternative culture. This is a touching story about us as youngsters, when everybody is against the whole world and tries not to become “one of them”. But can one keep the promise? The story is based on the best seller by Jānis Joņevs set in the 1994 in the Latvian city of Jelgava.

A veteran of the Great Patriotic War finds his front-line diary and relives the story that happened to him in the midst of the war. In the midst of fire, blood and dirt, he, then still a young Sashka, takes prisoner the same German boy. The enemy is preparing for death, but a young soldier gives him his word that Russian prisoners are not shot. Later, at the headquarters, saddened by the death of a combat friend, the battalion commander gives the order to shoot the prisoner. Sasha faces the most important choice in his life.