Perhaps the year 2024 is already indelibly etched in the minds of moviegoers as Ginta Zilbaloža Streams triumph marathon, however, it would not be fair to the Latvian film industry to reduce the entire year’s events to only one, albeit a great and incredibly successful film. If the circumstances were different, we would certainly have been happy for much longer that the year 2024 started with a serious award for Dāvjas Sīmanis’ feature film Mary’s silencea very important and impressive work of art, which was recognized by the Ecumenical Jury of the Berlin Film Festival in February, while in autumn Dāvi Sīmanis was also awarded the Baltic Assembly Award in Art. It is also worth remembering how since the premiere in January, a warm wave of audience love surrounded director Elsa Gauja’s feature film Postcard from Rome, which had already toured 200 cinema screens throughout Latvia in February and proved that the first months of the year are not an empty time for showing films.
In the history of Latvian cinema, the year 2024 will also be marked by the actualization of the concept of “multi-series film” to a new degree of known mass, because it is important that it is not just one success that could be called accidental – this year, a total of four very different mini-series reached the cinema screens, all supported by one European in the Regional Development Fund (ERAF) funding competition organized by the National Cinema Center, but each work is completely different both in terms of theme and stylistically, therefore, each one resonated more brightly in a different audience, together covering a wide spectrum of results. Premiered in January Boarding in the castle (study Mistrus Media) won the hearts of Latvian viewers with a stellar ensemble and the nationally cheerful humor of Anšlava Eglīš, achieving this year’s first audience records in cinemas. In February appeared on the screens Soviet jeans (study Film Taxes), which quickly took a course towards international recognition – already in March, the collaboration of directors Stanislav Tokalov and Jura Kursieš and the acting of Kārlis Arnold Avots were recognized with awards by the most important festival of quality series in Europe Series Mania in France. This spring, the third multi-series film – Andreja Īķa – was released Mutiny – boldly allowing the audience to be seriously shaken and disturbed, rather than entertainingly amused. In autumn, a fourth completely different series joined the group Assistant, the work of directors Liene Linde and Alisa Zariņa, anchored in today’s social reality. Unfortunately, at the same time, the fact that there are no funds in the basic budget of the Latvian film industry for the continuation of an equivalent series program, however, at the end of the year, a competition for multi-series film projects was announced by Latvian Television.
In April, the first signals about Gint Zilbalož’s full-length animated films came from France Stream the beginning of his international career – both the Cannes Film Festival and the most important animation forum Annecy announced their selection of films for competitions – but no one could have imagined what kind of avalanche was coming. In fact, in this short review I can not expand on Streams for this year’s success in the world – even in December everything can be read freshly in hot news headlines and will continue in January and February at least as long as Oscar the fever will not go away. I just want to emphasize that also in Latvia Stream is a unique phenomenon that shakes up the usual formulas of cinema statistics – since the national premiere at the end of August, the film Stream has been at the top of the list of the most watched films for at least fifteen weeks in a row, it reached the 100,000 audience mark already in October, but in the second half of December it became the official winner of the year, leaving behind a whole series of big-budget Hollywood projects.
The phenomena of 2024 should also include the fact, unique on a European and global scale, that in autumn the classic of documentary cinema Ivars Seleckis celebrated his 90th anniversary as a young and actively working director, completing the film together with Armandas Začas Continuation. growth, the premiere of which took place on the master’s birthday on September 22. An exhibition dedicated to the creative life of Ivars Seleckis can still be seen at the LKA Riga Cinema Museum.
On the other hand, healthy critical thinking was activated at the end of the year by the realization that patriotic good intentions and noble themes do not automatically guarantee comprehensive and indisputable success – the public’s contradictory reaction to feature films The land that sings appearance in the repertoire of cinemas will hopefully give a lot of substance for reflection and analytical conclusions.
Summarizing the ripples of 2024 in the Latvian film industry, the conclusions are encouraging – this has been a time of intense cinema life and bright phenomena, which will still be an opportunity to think about in January and February, when the annual harvest evaluations will come with the traditional Great Kristaps.
Source: www.diena.lv
