A fragment of the Berlin Wall in the centre of Riga.
Social & External
A high-school folk dancing group heads to Latvian School Youth Song and Dance Festival, an event that takes place every five years and is part of the Latvian national identity – this is the culmination point of five years of work. Away from their homes and parents, they spend seven days and nights together. They are 18 and have just graduated, and this seems to be the last idle summer of their lives. Dreams mix with boredom, silly jokes with serious conversations. Taking care of one another creates affection and grows into a collective power. There are thousands like them at the festival. Every individual sensation turns into a common celebration that becomes more than just a tradition.
Does Europe also have its own animistic heritage, like Pachamama in South America and Shinto in Japan? If so, which one? In the Misty Lands, i.e. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, a sacred fire is lit on the winter solstice to celebrate the return of the sun and ancient beliefs that have been forgotten in the rest of Europe for thousands of years. Sophie Planque and Jérémy Vaugeois decided to take a journey on bicycles to experience the Baltic winter and meet the people who keep their ancestral culture alive. A unique heritage that reinforces a deep relationship with nature.
DocuDrama about 13th century pre-Christian culture. Danish spy Lars enters the tribal lands of the Baltic peoples, where he takes part in religious rites, cruel forays, gets high during the Summer Solstice, becomes slave to the Couronians and even fights the crusaders. Who were the last pagans of Europe and how did they live? It is a unique trip into the textures of the past and into the unknown lands of the Baltic Tribes.
After the end of the Cold War, the Baltic was viewed almost as a quiet backwater. A nice place to visit to see charming Hanseatic cities and sandy beaches. But since the war in Ukraine the Baltic sea, bordered by eight European Union countries as well as Russia, has become a hot spot of world geopolitics. And tensions are high.
The War Diary is a contemporary road movie that confronts history with the current reality of Russia, Ukraine, Armenia and Georgia. An extraordinary document leads Hakob Melkonyan to undertake the journey of a lifetime:
Between 1930 and 1945, Eastern Europe experienced mass violence on an unprecedented scale. Hitler and Stalin exploited the vast region for their respective expansionist plans. It is estimated that around 14 million civilians were murdered—primarily Jews, Poles, Balts, Belarusians, and Ukrainians.
Special care has been taken by International Historic Films to assemble this monumental documentary, which tells the story of what is left for a people after its land has been ravaged by war. Situated between the powerful antagonists Germany and the Soviet Union, the Baltic nations of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia bore witness to some of the most ferocious land battles of the Second World War.
In 1989, thirteen GDR scientists and technicians set off from East Berlin to the Georg Forster research station in the Antarctic. During their expedition the Berlin Wall fell on November 9th. Cut off from the images that go around the world, the men can only experience the historical events passively. When they returned in the spring of 1991, their homeland was a foreign country. The documentary reconstructs the thoughts and feelings of the East German researchers on the basis of eyewitness accounts, diary excerpts, letters, film material, grandiose landscape shots from the location of the action and unique photos to make the consequences of the events tens of thousands of kilometers away on the small GDR expedition in the middle of the eternal ice tangible.
Some of the most iconic images in Latvian visual history were taken 30 years ago, when the so-called Singing Revolution took place. This documentary that includes well-known and previously unseen 35 mm footage, is about those who took these shots, told in their own voices, their own emotions and memories.
Unustatud rahvad (1970 - 1989) by Estonian composer Veljo Tormas is based upon six Balto-Finnic peoples traditions. Collegium Musicale choir brought the songs to different sides of Baltic coasts to liven current citizens connections for fleeting past and strengthen their identity.
Located on the shores of the Baltic Sea, between Poland and Lithuania, Kaliningrad is a piece of Russia in the heart of Europe. A curious territory, isolated from Moscow after the fall of the USSR, today transformed into a military fortress facing NATO. In Kaliningrad, headquarters of the Russian Baltic fleet, there are 30,000 soldiers, hypersonic missiles and nuclear capability.
Tashkent: The End of an Era reconstructs the complex history of Tashkent by means of archive footage which has never been shown before and the testimonies of its inhabitants.
This lost classic, shot on 16mm in a wintry Berlin in 1993, explores the origins of the German trance scene. Featuring interviews with fresh-faced selectors including Laurent Garnier and MFS Records founder Mark Reeder, the documentary also feature footage from the city's iconic Love Parades in 1991 and 1993.
On the verge of retirement, Commissioner Gintas must undertake the investigation of a series of heinous murders, a dangerous task that could expose the many dirty secrets of several prominent members of the social elite of a small Lithuanian town.
Set in Milan in the summer of 1989 against the backdrop of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the film follows four frustrated individuals whose lives intertwine because of the loss of a planner.
In Soviet-occupied Estonia, a boy is caught between a broken family, the suffocating grip of state power, and forces far older than the empire itself. As propaganda and betrayal close in, he discovers that the greatest danger emerges where political oppression and ancient myth converge - and that his own bloodline may hold the key to both survival and ruin.
The film tells the story of the events during the night of January 19 to 20, 1990, when the Soviet Army invaded Baku and its surroundings and killed many civilians.
A collection of hits from one of pop music’s greatest geniuses - Prince, aka ‘The Artist Formerly Known as Prince’, aka ‘the Unpronounceable Symbol’, and more. Whichever alias he assumed, Prince was always fascinating as both a performer and songwriter, and here are the best of his own appearances on a selection of BBC shows, alongside a rich selection of performances from artists who covered his songs over the years.
Documentary telling the story of seven bleak months of industrial chaos that changed Britain forever. Featuring memories and anecdotes from famous faces.
Nebojša Pajkić, a screenwriter, talks about his life and work.
During the Cold War, an American scientist appears to defect to East Germany as part of a cloak and dagger mission to find the formula for a resin solution—but the plan goes awry when his fiancee, unaware of his motivation, follows him across the border.
A detailing of the rise to prominence and global sporting superstardom of six supremely talented young Manchester United football players (David Beckham, Nicky Butt, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Phil and Gary Neville). The film covers the period 1992-1999, culminating in Manchester United's European Cup triumph.
In 1990s Belfast, a woman is forced to betray all she believes in for the sake of her son.
The most comprehensive retrospective of the '80s action film genre ever made.
Al Pacino's deeply-felt rumination on Shakespeare's significance and relevance to the modern world through interviews and an in-depth analysis of "Richard III."
An inside look at one of the most anticipated movie sequels ever with James Cameron and cast.
A British woman on a visit to post-war Berlin is caught up in an espionage ring smuggling secrets into and out of the Eastern Bloc.
Vice detective Bob Hightower finds his ex-wife murdered and daughter kidnapped by a cult. Frustrated by the botched official investigations, he quits the force and infiltrates the cult to hunt down the leader with the help of the cult’s only female victim escapee, Case Hardin.
James Bond is sent to investigate after a fellow “00” agent is found dead with a priceless Indian Fabergé egg. Bond follows the mystery and uncovers a smuggling scandal and a Russian General who wants to provoke a new World War.
A compilation of over 30 years of private home movie footage shot by Lithuanian-American avant-garde director Jonas Mekas, assembled by Mekas "purely by chance", without concern for chronological order.
On his deathbed, the reigning king bestows power to an unexpected heir who must find strength within himself to unite his people against the violent crusades which threaten their freedom.
Those who knew iconic funnyman John Candy best share his story, in their own words, through never-before-seen archival footage, imagery, and interviews.
A young Indigenous game warden arrests an infamous poacher only to discover that the poacher knows the location of a plane carrying millions of dollars that has crashed in a frozen lake. When a group of criminals and dirty cops are alerted to the poacher’s whereabouts, the warden and the poacher team up to fight back and escape across the treacherous lake before the ice melts.
A presentation of a case for a needed transition out of the current socioeconomic monetary paradigm which governs the entire world society. This subject matter will transcend the issues of cultural relativism and traditional ideology and move to relate the core, empirical 'life ground' attributes of human and social survival, extrapolating those immutable natural laws into a new sustainable social paradigm called a 'Resource-Based Economy'.
Behind-the-scenes documentary about how Lionel Messi succeeded in lifting the World Cup – the only trophy to have eluded him in an incredible career.
A documentary focused on plastic pollution in the world's oceans.
Martin Scorsese spends an evening with larger-than-life raconteur Steven Prince—a former drug addict, road manager for Neil Diamond, and actor—as he recounts stories from his colorful life.
Colonel Stok, a Soviet intelligence officer responsible for security at the Berlin Wall, appears to want to defect but the evidence is contradictory. Stok wants the British to handle his defection and asks for one of their agents, Harry Palmer, to smuggle him out of East Germany.
A World War II veteran hunts down the Nazi collaborators who killed his wife.
When a young soldier, newly returned from war, gets caught up in a drug bust, he is recruited by the authorities to go undercover in a notoriously dangerous prison in order to figure out what is really going on.
