The New York Baltic Film Festival was founded in 2018 as a centennial event of the three Baltic countries and has since grown into the largest Baltic film festival in the United States and the only one outside of Europe that is supported by the national film institutions of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. Film screenings take place in the cinema hall of the Scandinavian House in New York, offering the audience to meet the authors of the films and representatives of the creative teams; this year, each country is represented by three full-length films and two short films, combined in a joint program Baltic Shorts Program.
The selection of Latvian films at this festival will be opened by director Elza Gauja’s heartfelt story Postcard from Rome (screening 8.11., online 9.-17.11.), which gained great popularity in Latvia at the beginning of this year and also received the national cinema award Great Kristaps as the best feature film of the year. On November 9, the audience will be offered a historical feature film by director Dāvjas Sīmanis Mary’s silence (online 10-17.11), a co-production of Latvia and Lithuania, which has already marked itself out as an important work in the Baltic context, having received the Baltic Assembly Award in Art. The Baltic short film program will be screened at the Scandinavian House on November 10, Latvia is represented in this program by the short film The Game by director Uģ Oltes The victim (2023) and a short film directed by Jānis Ābele and Tom Škēle The fear of the white page (2024).
At the end of the in-person screenings of the New York Baltic Film Festival on November 10, the audience will meet the animated film by director Gints Zilbalož stream, and this will be an exclusive screening only for the live audience of the festival – Stream will not be shown online as this is when the film’s heavy participation begins Oscar in the award competition, which provides many in-person screenings for members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and on November 22 Stream will enter the repertoire of US cinemas – first in the largest cinemas in New York and Los Angeles, then in others, in total more than 200 cinemas across the USA.
The organization of the New York Baltic Film Festival is supported by the three film institutions of the Baltic countries (National Film Center, Lithuanian Film Center and Estonian Film Institute), diplomatic services and diaspora organizations, as well as the Latvian Investment and Development Agency (LIAA), ALA, PBLA Culture Fund, Latvian Embassy in the USA , the permanent representation of Latvia at the UN, the honorary consulate of Latvia in Vermont, the Latvian company Edhard Corporation in the USA and other cooperation partners.
Source: www.diena.lv
