A selection of the most important films of director Herz Frank can be viewed online free of charge / Article / LSM.lv

On January 17, 95 years of the Latvian documentary film classic, film director Herz Frank (1926–2013), would turn 95 years old. The National Cinema Center offers a free selection of the director’s most important films on the portal filmas.lv. –

The selection includes both digitized and restored classical films in cooperation with the Latvian State Archive of Film and Photophono Documents, as well as works made in the 21st century, a representative of the National Film Center informed. Movies are available online at any time free of charge anywhere in Latvia, wherever internet coverage is available.

“I don’t care if you know in advance what the film might end up with, and the protagonist just tells his pre-invented thoughts. For me, the cinema starts where the thought is born in the frame, in front of my eyes, where we feel that the protagonist doubts, and we feel that he is alive!

A film about a person is always a film about the life of his soul. ”

this was once said by director Hertz Frank.

Hertz Franks is one of the creators of the Latvian poetic documentary film tradition and also the strongest theorist in Latvian film documentary in the 1960s.

While working as a photographer for the evening newspaper “Rīgas Balss”, Hercs Franks took a photo from which the idea for the short film “White bells”(1961). This scenario was chosen by the young cinematographers Ivars Kraulītis and Uldis Brauns, and as a result, a film was made, which Latvian film critics consider to be the cornerstone of the poetic style, but world film critics ranked it among the 100 best short films of all time. The film is also included in the Latvian Cultural Canon.

Hertz Frank made his film debut in 1965 with a television short film about the lives and work of fishermen. “Sāļā maize”(1965), about which the master himself said:

“What can anyone say about their first child? It will always be expensive because being the first.

At first, I had nothing but a small camera in my hands. ”

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In the same year, Herc Frank was entrusted with the poet Imants Ziedons to create the script for the feature film of the anniversary of Soviet Latvia.Annual report”(1965), filmed by director Aivars Freimanis and cameraman Ivars Seleckis. This joint work of young and talented people became a convincing proof that a new era had entered Latvian documentary cinema, with a living person at its center, rather than a frozen ideology.

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Another important script for the history of cinema is Herz Frank – a feature film made with director Uldis Brauns and three other filming teams. ”235 000 000”(1967), which was filmed throughout the then Soviet Union, already envisaging two parallel story lines in the script – events of national importance and, in contrast, the intimacy of personal events in human life.

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Herzka Frank’s classic directorial works are represented in this anniversary selection by three very different films. Short filmLifetime“(1972, cameraman Kalvis Zalcmanis) revealed the human scale of the personality with the method of long observation, filming the famous chairman of the collective farm Edgars Kauliņš in Lielvārde, but”Older than ten minutes”(1978, cinematographer Juris Podnieks) became the most famous Herz Frank film in the world – only a ten-minute-long, but extremely capacious portrait of a small child’s soul. The film is included in the Latvian Cultural Canon and in the programs of many international festivals and film schools.

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The selection of the classic period includes a feature film “Supreme Court”(1987), whose protagonist is a murderer sentenced to death, and the director’s attempts to understand this person’s life and destiny by dealing with complex ethical issues have turned the film into a confession.

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During the director’s anniversary week, two very important works shot in the 21st century were added to his film collection on the portal filmas.lv. Full-length filmFlashback”(2002) grew out of the idea to find a little boy from the film” Over Ten Minutes “20 years later, but as a result, in this film, Herc Frank turned the documentary camera against himself and looked back on his entire life – from childhood in the Ludza Jewish family to heart surgery in Jerusalem – , dedicating the film to all his fellow cameramen, with whom he was lucky to work together. “Flashback” has received many important awards at world festivals, and immediately after the film’s release, Herc Frank was awarded Lifetime Achievement Awards in three countries – Latvia (2001), Israel (2004) and Russia (2006).

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The filmThe border of fear”(2014) was the last work of Hertz Frank, which was completed after the master’s death by co-director Maria Kravchenko, the producers of the film were Vitalijs Manskis and Guntis Trekteris. The protagonists of the film find themselves in a completely extreme situation – Igal Amir kills the Israeli prime minister at the age of twenty-six, is sentenced to life imprisonment and becomes the country’s worst prisoner, but Larisa – a Russian emigrant, mother of four – divorces her husband to marry murderer and give birth to a son for him. For many years, the authors of the film have tried to understand this complex story, in which life, death and love are intertwined. This film has become a monument to the director.

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