The Last Day of School
Genres
Overview
After receiving an edict from the municipal authorities about the closing of their school, the students at Mežvidi primary school continue to attend lessons and exercise creativity and fun, but it’s all clouded in a sense of fatality. They aren’t many students, and because of that the school resembles a large family rather than an institution. Near the Russian border, deep in the Latgale region, this place will become a nowhere-land once the youth depart. In an intimate message about a national problem, the story focuses on three sisters for whom life is about to drastically change. Through their daily lives and small adventures we try to understand the real meaning of the contention that “the countryside is dying”. And we see hope.
Details
Budget
$0
Revenue
$0
Runtime
26 min
Release Date
2014-11-05
Status
Released
Original Language
Latvian
Vote Count
0
Vote Average
0
5.7
Sleep Furiously
Set in a small farming community in mid Wales, a place where Koppel's parents - both refugees - found a home. This is a landscape and population that is changing rapidly as small scale agriculture is disappearing and the generation who inhabited a pre-mechanised world is dying out. Much influenced by his conversations with the writer Peter Handke, the film maker leads us on a poetic and profound journey into a world of endings and beginnings; a world of stuffed owls, sheep and fire.
2008-08-15 | en
0.0
To Be Beautiful
The documentary explores issues of beauty and acceptance in a culture increasingly saturated with idealised and unattainable ideals of femininity. It is a story about the world of young girls in today's Latvia, based on conversations about girls' attitudes towards the world and their place in it.
2019-11-11 | lv
0.0
Dinārs
Dinārs is a Latvian schlager singer popular with the ladies and known for his big cat mane. The eponymous film follows his path over a turbulent season of work.
2020-12-15 | lv
0.0
Residents
The documentary “Residents” probes problems in Latvia in general and Latvia’s medicine in particular with the story of two energetic young interns, Kārlis and Laura.
2017-11-12 | lv
0.0
Lords of Riga
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?
2015-11-03 | lv
0.0
Talkers
The three speakers represent two of the dialects, with the most common one - the middle dialect spoken in Riga and central parts of Latvia - not featured in the film. In intimate surroundings, a farmer, a schoolteacher, and a herder of ostriches talk about perceived differences between Latvian speakers, and about language policy and their lives.
2016-11-08 | lv
0.0
David and Goliath
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.
2018-11-18 | lv
0.0
The Misunderstood
An attempt to understand the people chanting "Atlaist Saeimu!" (Sack the parliament!) year after year. Though rarely attracting a great deal of notice, there are always individuals collecting signatures for a referendum to dissolve the parliament for one reason or another, or simply standing outside the building and reciting their familiar mantra. Latvian governments change fairly often, but the parliament has been dissolved in line wth the Constitution only once, in 2010 (in 1934 it was dissolved unconstitutionally following a coup by Prime Minister Kārlis Ulmanis). The actual parliament building in Old Rīga was, however, attacked in January 2009 during a very rare violent protest which precipitated the fall of Ivars Godmanis' cabinet. The documentary zips back and forth in time giving portraits of various different people and political forces pushing the idea to "Atlaist Saeimu" for different reasons.
2020-11-24 | lv
0.0
Wordsmiths
Vārdotājas (Wordsmiths) traces the recent rise of women's stand-up comedy in Latvia, but it is by no means just for laughs. Feelings of discomfort, shame, shock, are just some of the subjects tackled.
2019-11-11 | lv
0.0
In the Middle
A story of a Latvian family making tentative plans to return to Latvia. Ģirts, a doctor working in Denmark for nine years, receives an invitation to set up a professional practice back in Latvia – a welcome opportunity, as he would like to look after his parents better. But things aren't as simple as that, and his family is divided over the issue.
2020-12-08 | lv
0.0
Seekers
This film probes the activities of the bezvests.lv NGO that looks for missing persons and instructs others on how to find them. Since they started in 2009, they’ve helped find more than 90 people who had gone missing. It follows volunteers during training and on a search mission – theirs is a nerve-wracking task as in many cases they only locate the expired body of the missing person.
2017-11-12 | lv
0.0
Grandfather's Father
In this film a young man and his curmudgeonly grandfather are going 1,800 km to northern Russia in an old Zhiguli car, hoping to find the grave of their great-grandfather, who was deported. The grandfather Andris is sceptic over the lofty quest, initiated by his grand-son, as it’s not known what awaits them at their destination. Andris thinks they won’t find anything and will come back to Latvia without ever learning what happened to his father. However ever-optimistic Kārlis wants to use the journey not only to find answers about the past but also become closer to his grandfather who raised him. They both lost their parents as children.
2016-10-01 | lv
0.0
Gauja. Twice in the River
A film documenting contemporary Latvian reality along the banks of the river Gauja while channelling one of the first Latvian sound documentary films, Gauja (1934). “Along with producers Sandijs Semjonovs and Gundars Rēders and editor Atis Klimovičs, we witnessed incidents and events along the banks of the river some 80 years later. We captured them along with the views of folks on this river in a documentally poetic style reflecting the reality in Latvia,” explains director Mārtiņš Grauds.
2013-11-16 | lv
0.0
Trillium
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.
2018-11-11 | lv
0.0
Vadātājs
'Vadātājs' is an ancient Latvian mythological creature that leads people to Nowhere. As Latvia has been declared the most superstitious country in the EU, it is important to understand – what do we believe in? Three young filmmakers – a director, cinematographer and sound girl – question if Latvia is a lost country and if a Vadātājs has achieved enormous power by leading Latvian society into confusion. A search for a contemporary Vadātājs*, and the understanding of the origins of confusion within people in the 21st century.
2013-11-16 | lv
0.0
Sencis: Old Man
A documentary that chronicles twin brothers searching for their absent father in faraway Russia. Having very few leads, the twin brothers – different in character and interests – are also looking for the ties that have never bound them as closely as they would have liked.
2018-11-12 | lv
0.0
Sugarcane, Coati and Monowheel
Nearly everybody has been to the circus to laugh about clowns, be afraid of the lions and to eat sugar cane. However, can anyone imagine that circus artists reside right there in the circus building - above the arena in the second floor hotel rooms - where they also prepare meals, do their laundry and try out their magic tricks? For over 125 years, despite the discomfort of non-renovated premises and ubiquitous animal odor, local and foreign circus artists follow their routine to create the circus miracle. Sugarcane, Coati and Monowheel is a film about those who dwell in Riga Circus and about what happens outside the arena before and after meeting audience under the circus dome.
2014-11-05 | lv
7.0
Restart
The heroine is a widow and a fiancé who wants to begin a new and happy life. Conflicts in her family’s past prevent it, but she does not give up – she wants to clear away the ruins and do what she can. “Enough of looking for guilt, it’s time to find a solution,” she thinks, and takes action.
2014-11-05 | lv
0.0
Let's Make It Pretty
Two Rigans - Valentīna and Armands - make makeshift yard exhibitions by their homes out of objects they’ve found. They share the same hobby despite not knowing each other. As they’re decorating their little gardens of wonder for the upcoming Midsummer festival, it turns out that they too can find understanding and a sense of not being alone in their dreams.
2016-11-08 | lv
0.0
Hike '44
“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.
2019-11-11 | lv