Andrejs Strokins

We literally found our film next to a dumpster. It was a bag containing 36 rolls of photographic negatives exposed between the 1960s and 1980s by an unknown photographer. We named him Anton, Aunt Emma's son. Looking through our contact sheets, with their many inaccuracies—blurred edges, random elements in the frame, haze, accidents, and double exposures—we tried to imagine what our lives would be like if these were our photos.

The film follows Matīss Kaža during a period when his professional life has taken him from one country and continent to another. Together with Gints Zilbalodis, the director of the film Flow (Straume), he spent nearly a year caught in a whirlwind of international award ceremonies, events, and meetings—a journey that included the film’s path to the Academy Awards. Yet, this is only one facet of Kaža’s life and work. During the same period, he made his debut as a theatre director at three different venues in Riga and crafted the Lielais Kristaps (Latvian National Film Awards) and Spēlmaņu nakts (Latvian Theatre Awards) ceremonies as multimedia performances. The camera follows Kaža as he constantly creates, travels, and engages in new projects, all while maintaining an ironic perspective on both himself and the world around him.