Change your perspective. Question. Wonder. Take a closer look.
With this year's theme and slogan “There is always time” Riga International Film Festival (RIGA IFF) invites you to experience quality cinema. Until 24th of October watch handpicked films from your home, cosy up on the couch and spend lockdown evenings in the best way possible.
To watch films is like going on a journey & sometimes you find even more than you were hoping for. Films are not only sequences of shots, it's a masterful creation of different mediums mixed together - images, text and, of course, music. We've prepared a RIGA IFF treasure collection & guide - from films we've already seen so far and the ones we are looking forward to watching in the following days. Take a look!
FILM SOUNDTRACKS FOR DIFFERENT MOODS
Dance the blues away
Kiss Me Until My Lips Fall Off by Lebanon Hanover from film “Social Hygiene”
Soothe the soul & meditate
Gwydion's Dream by Robin Williamson from film “Bergman Island”
Fancy Adam Driver?
All the Girls by Sparks & Adam Driver from “Annette”
Classics to be enjoyed with hot cuppa & rain
4 Préludes, Op.28 - 4. In E Minor by Frédéric Chopin from film “Love Affair(s)”
THIS IS NOT YOUR TYPICAL FILM - A MUSICAL FANTASY TALE "ANNETTE"
Ladies and gentlemen, we now ask for your complete attention. If you want to sing, laugh, clap, cry, yawn, boo or fart, please, do it in your head, only in your head. You are now kindly requested to keep silent and to hold your breath until the very end of the show.
Those are the first lines in the film. Intrigued?
Director Leos Carax won the award for Best Director at this year’s Cannes Film Festival with this provocative and deeply personal musical starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard as the two lovers. Interesting fact: the film was originally written by Ron and Russell Mael as an album for their band Sparks.
There is only one way to discover whether this musical is your thing! Book your online ticket here.
“Hey, don't worry. We will get through this.”
“Great Freedom” directed by Sebastian Meise is a reminder of how love shines through even in the darkest times. Heartbreaking, gut-wrenching and intimate look on destroyed lives, painful history and life in imprisonment, as well as tenderness and love.
The film won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard section. Screened on 16th of October at RIGA IFF this film still lingers in our minds. Watch the trailer & add it to your watchlist.
4 EVENINGS WITH RIGA IFF. BEST OF BALTIC ENTERTAINMENT PICKS.
3 films from Baltics.
The Year Before the War. Directed by: Dāvis Sīmanis. 21 OCTOBER, 19:00.
In the twilight of history, unaware that the world is about to change, Peter, a young doorman from Riga, embarks on a surreal odyssey across Europe. Travelling through Paris, London, Prague, Vienna and elsewhere, he has started calling himself Hans. In these cities, he finds himself among communists, anarchists, proto-fascists and nationalists. He meets copies of Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky and the vampiric Proust, and falls for Alma, the doppelganger of the spy Mata Hari. He also meets Freud in a life reform commune in the Swiss sanatorium Monte Veritá, or the Hill of Truth. Maybe he can help? The identity crisis and paranoia are relentless: who is Peter really?
Runner. Directed by: Andrius Blaževičius. 21 OCTOBER, 16:30
Maria has not had the easiest night. A split lip, a broken front door and a missing boyfriend. Vytas has run away after another manic episode, but this time he doesn’t want to be found. He challenges his girlfriend Maria to a sort of hide-and-seek race, and Maria starts to run. Her chase leads through waitressing shifts, public transport, doctor’s offices, and through a series of coincidences in space and time. She is ready to run through the whole city if that’s what it takes to find him. Chasing love, Maria is always one step behind.
Dawn of War. Directed by: Margus Paju. 23 OCTOBER, 16:30
The summer months of 1939 pass teetering on the edge of war. The head of Estonia’s Counter-Soviet Intelligence Unit is assassinated as Stalin’s Soviet Union and Hitler’s Third Reich strike a deal. The unit is rife with suspicions of a traitor among their own agents. As the political and military entanglements grow thicker, former spy Feliks Kangur is asked to uncover the Soviet double agent. Poland is invaded and Feliks goes on the hunt for the “mole”. Soon, he makes a startling discovery that will change the course of history.
The Worst Person in the World. Directed by: Joachim Trier. 22 OCTOBER, 19:00, 24 OCTOBER, 20:30
A chaotic and unpredictable portrait of a chaotic and unpredictable woman. Julie would not have been able to organise her life as neatly as the filmmakers have done for her, namely into a prologue, 12 chapters and an epilogue. As her 30th birthday approaches, she continues to explore new skills and career paths: medicine, psychology, photography and other whims. She starts a relationship with Aksel, a slightly older graphic novelist, and the two are ideally compatible. But their relationship requires stability and Julie starts feeling increasingly anxious. One night, torn between what she wants and what others expect, she meets Eivind. Having received the blessing of her impulsivity, Julie is ready to throw away everything that is good in her life.
Paris, 13th District. Directed by: Jacques Audiard. 23 OCTOBER, 20:30
Modern-day Paris. Émilie lives in one of the apartment buildings in a neighbourhood of looming housing blocks. She works in telecommunications, lives in her grandmother’s apartment and enjoys a more idle and whimsical life than her mother and more successful sister. She meets Camille, a teacher who is looking for a place to live. Camille becomes interested in Émilie, and also in Nora, who has just resumed her studies at the Sorbonne, leaving real estate behind. When Nora gets mistaken for a cam girl at a party, she gradually gets to know her double, platinum blonde Amber. Their existence, whims and dreams slowly settle into a love square.
Things We Say, Things We Do (Love Affair(s)). Directed by: Emmanuel Mouret. 24 OCTOBER, 14:00
Daphné loves hearing stories about other people’s love affairs. She is pregnant and spends her first trimester in a country château with her partner François. His cousin Maxime comes to stay with them to do some writing and decides to tell Daphné the story of his relationship. As a matter of fact, there are several stories to tell, and not all of them have started well (let alone ended well). Over the next four days, Daphné will also disclose her own love affairs and how her relationship ideals have been dashed. Only the viewers know that Daphné and Maxime will be bestowed a relationship story of their own.
Annette. Directed by: Leos Carax. 24 OCTOBER, 19:00
A Los Angeles fairy tale doomed to become a cynical tragedy. Stand-up comedian Henry, a self-proclaimed “The Ape of God”, and Ann, an opera diva, are madly in love with one another. So passionately and earnestly that they dedicate a duet to their love. Every night, Henry’s devastating humour “kills” the audience, while Ann’s voice guides and “saves” them. Henry quips that humour is one of the few opportunities to tell the truth without getting killed. After the birth of their gifted daughter Annette, the world changes genres; envy, resentment, bad publicity, the tabloids, #MeToo and evil born of jealousy. So may we start?
More information and festival program on https://rigaiff.lv/en.
