Klāvs Mellis

The State Electrotechnical Factory's cultural palace, or vefiņš, was opened on March 1, 1960, and was allocated for the factory's needs. However, today science has been banished from these walls. Alongside the brightest local pop artists, countless feet and legs dressed in pastels tread the boards of this stage every year to determine which group will take center stage at the Daugava Stadium during the Song and Dance Festival. Meanwhile, the young, promising and provocative documentary filmmaker Ingmārs Somis has come here to make a film about the "other side" of folk dancing on stage - about nationalistic programming, worn-out feet, sunburn and blouses tucked into underpants. He has decided to expose the teachers, lecture the parents, liberate the dancers, destroy the VEF cultural palace, get hold of the Great Kristaps and enter the Latvian cultural canon.

“TESA MAN” is a music film – a poetic exploration of the relationship between collective creativity and the natural world. The film blurs the lines between reality and imagination, inviting viewers into an animistic experience where music performed by the band Tesa in a frozen Baltic landscape attempts to transform air, steam, ash and clay into something much more alive.

A short drama about friendship that adds colour to life, even when February weather turns Riga grey. Two emotional worlds, two inner rhythms, two guys who meet by chance and search for understanding of the world and friendship in the noises and sounds of the city. Their sonic collaboration makes the overall structure of the film akin to a musical composition and introduces Riga from a perspective never seen before.

Suddenly, Peter, sitting in his tractor, wins a radio competition for a potato variety. He turns his back on his wife and rides the tractor into town to collect his prize. Peter's journey becomes more important than the original destination - it resolves his relationship with his wife.

New performers have recently moved into the 130-year-old building of the Riga Circus. Having built a stage in the stables, actors Ance, Āris, Klāvs, Reinis and the other members of the theatre company Kvadrifrons are reinvigorating and preserving the tradition of live art in the circus. The name of the group is an acronym in Latvian that conveys their ethos: they are an organisation that can chill with their friends, have bursts of amazing creativity, and whose members are far from unintelligent. And all the while, the strong smell of elephants wafts through the building. Here and there, the life of the previous inhabitants makes itself known. Soon shamanistic rituals alternate with clowning around, fortune-telling with illusion juggling, stagecraft with personal choices. Then suddenly, out of Nothing… emerges Theatre.

Twelve uncomfortable, deeply personal and painful stories by women who have had an abortion are read, told and 'experienced' by six male actors. Does that make a difference? Will the society listen now?

A young director, who sits in front of a commission defending a film based on her own experiences with sex and relationships, is continually confronted with questions about why she’s making the movie. The answer doesn’t come easy… Linde took on a difficult task for her short film.

Maija is a young and ambitious journalist who wants to do something that no other journalist has dared. In order to conduct a groundbreaking research on Daesh, she pretends to be an Islamic convert and tries to join them.

The story of what we would do if we were given another chance to see our lost loved ones, even if only for a few minutes. One of the film's characters, Viktor, is given this opportunity, and he goes to see his wife. This is not a horror film or fantasy, but a drama about the human weaknesses that we all possess.