To Be Beautiful

Following the death of her brother, filmmaker Robie Flores returns to her hometown Eagle Pass on the Texas/Mexico border, wanting to turn back time. She collides with unruly experiences of adolescence – quinceañeras, Rio Grande river excursions, teen makeovers and beyond – that invite her to soak up the details of the home her brother adored and she ignored. What emerges is a playful dance between a personal and collective coming-of-age portrait of kids on the border and Robie herself as she rediscovers the possibilities of joy in the aftermath of grief.

Two teenagers seek the fullness of their identities with time on top and normality against it. First hand testimony of transgender kids and the support of their family.

The film twice states that it doesn't intend a moral injunction, but it clearly does with comments such as "our society... regards sexual intercourse outside marriage as irresponsible and possibly disastrous" and "you can use your knowledge with responsibility and real love or you can use it wantonly and with mere animal appetite". This is clearly marriage education not sex education.

Three groups of adolescent girl friends from Quebec are going through tough changes. The process of inventing their own bodies and identity are being recorded on the move by their smartphones and shared with their peers from other parts of the networked world. Due to their strong need of external confirmation, they alter their lives into a series of retouched pictures and videos. The film camera, however, captures their feelings of void, loneliness and deep inner insecurities that are not so attractive for Periscope, TikTok or Instagram. An intimate portrait of adolescence is made with full comprehension of experiencing and self-presentation in a generation growing up on the brink of the real and virtual worlds.

A journalistic investigation, built not on rumors and assumptions, but on direct evidence, revealing the true mechanisms of podium coronations. Hidden camera footage of negotiations with the owners of the largest national beauty contests and an attempt to answer the question of why these people are not yet in prison. Famous people on the jury are not a guarantee of fair judging. Irrefutable evidence of the corruption of the so-called “stars” who elect the next Miss and Mrs. The collection and subsequent theft of funds for charity is a side business of the owners of fraudulent shows. What actually awaits the titled Misses after purchasing the prize? And what do children's beauty pageants turn out to be like for young participants?

Inspired by the small enterprise, CHROMABYADHAM, a colourblind inclusive clothing wear line. ECLIPSE FEVER, the third collection, encompasses the visual representation of the brand and features themes of growth and remembrance, while coherently showcasing the new collection — a celebration of nighttime and nightlife.

After finding some videos she uploaded to YouTube when she was a child, Manuela attempts to follow the trail she herself has left on the Internet. A search that looks into all that things that won't never die and that, especially, thinks about the way we look at ourselves.

Documentary footage from various sources, set to music. Showing the whole of human life, from birth to death and beyond.

Six girls coming of age, ready to become something extraordinary.

Bachar à la ZAD

L'Odyssée des enfants d'ULIS

A 16 year old girl recalls the last moments of her summer vacation, spent with friends in the Laurentians north of Montreal. She reminisces about their talks on life, death, love, and God. Shot in direct cinema style, working from a script that left room for the teenagers to improvise and express their own thoughts, the film sought to capture the immediacy of the youths presence their bodies, their language, their environment.

“Hike '44" is a personal story by director Lauris Abele and cinematographer Marcis Abele about how to maintain humanity when the world falls apart. The protagonist of the film, Melita Abele (89), retraces her refugee path from 1944, when, at the age of 14, she had to leave her home at the beginning of winter. Asking strangers for shelter, spend nights in the woods until she found refuge and warm hearts. Through the use of animation, the viewer will be guided through Melita's memories on a journey through recent and present-day Latvia until a series of events brings Melita to what she has been trying to accomplish for 75 years.

The film follows a thirty-year-old man’s efforts to introduce radical changes in his own life: to start visiting a therapist and preparing for the demolition of his bragging childhood home. Story chronicles the troubled relationship between Mārtiņš and his mother, just as he is about to tear down his childhood home.

Lords of Riga allows to see an insight into a passionate subculture of bike couriers. Weaving their way through the urban traffic, they have become silent and sometimes unnoticed witnesses of everyday life in Riga as well as examples of our modern-day society. What is freedom to this bunch of rebellious messengers and where it ends?

First there was ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’, then ‘My Brilliant Career’, and now best of all ‘The Getting of Wisdom’. It is incomparably moving and powerful.

The documentary chronicles the life stories of two brothers, Kristaps and Krists. Kristaps, the elder brother, is disabled and has trouble talking, but he can rap. His younger brother Krists is one of the best freestyle BMX bikers in Latvia.

There are about 250 people with a unique ancestry. Livonians – one of the smallest and most endangered nations. Each of Livonians has a duty to preserve their identity and the great history of their ancestors. Trillium follows the footsteps of a poet and researcher Valts Ernštreits, who is one of 20 people able to speak fluent Livonian – an indigenous language related to Estonian and Finnish – in his efforts to look after the language and culture of these ancient settlers of the Baltic Sea coast.

Māris Strazds (also known as "Mr Black Stork") is a man who's been studying black storks and their behaviour for forty years. His love for and relationship with these beautiful birds is longer than the relationship with his wife. Having spent more than half of his life following black storks, Māris is aware that due to deforestation the number of these birds in Latvia is rapidly approaching zero.

An ordinary old folks’ home on the Latvian border – one of many, where our parents, grand-parents and other relatives spend their old age. Theirs is the generation whose prime years co-existed with the Soviet Union, and who were promised: work, give all you can, and we’ll take care when you’re old. The system changed and the reality is different. How to live in this reality, accept the current rules, or live in the past and have regrets. We will touch upon their world, and the dreams and hopes of Vilnis, Imants, Alberts and Elizabete.