The most important animated film festival has started on June 13 in the French city of Annecy, where something special will be expected from Latvian artists after the success of recent years. In 2019, our local phenomenon, the young director Gints Zilbalodis, who made the full-length animated film “Boys” (2019) alone, won the winners of the competition in the parallel program “Contrechamp”. It seems that he was also the one who drew the attention of Latvia’s popular culture to animation, at least for a while.
A year later, the main prize in the same competition went to Ilze Burkovska-Jakobsen with the documentary animated film “My Favorite War” (2020), which, incidentally, is now returning to the world screens, because unfortunately its theme – life in the shadow of Soviet propaganda – has become painfully topical.
But a few days ago at the Traibeck Festival The premiere took place in New York The latest work “My Marriage Project” by animator Signe Baumane, who has already become a film legend – I think we can safely foresee a shine similar to that of the film “Stones in My Pockets” (2014).
But while the success of feature films is almost exclusively loud, international recognition has long been uncommon in the short term.
Short films have always been a much bolder format – they are fearless, permitting them to cross the boundaries of form and content, to play and experiment.
As a result, animated shorts cannot be framed by definition. The joint project of the Latvian Animation Association and Latvian Television draws attention to this varied diversity, which on the three Thursdays of June LTV7 shows current events in the field of animation in recent years. On June 16, at 10.20 pm, the third of these programs will be aired, which also includes perhaps the most commercially successful short film of recent years – the much-experienced “Kiosk” by Anete Melece (2013).
Anna Zača, the head of the Animation Association, points out that the aim of this collaboration is to highlight the various handwritings of Latvian animators and that it is planned to repeat it when the next short film is ready.
While waiting for the new words to appear, it is interesting to watch the further work of already experienced directors. Kārlis Vītols has just received funding from the National Film Center for the feature film “The North Star”. In the same competition, funds were awarded to Edmunds Jansons, who is already well known to Latvian viewers after Maskačka’s heartfelt story “Jēkabs, Mimmi un talking talking dogs” (2019). The same Gints Zilbalodis is in the first stages of production for the film “Straume” – this time it will be a co-production, although the guy retains the reins of several levels of the film’s production.
But moving to full-length does not always mean growth – just as for a writer, short stories are not just a training for a novel. The short format of the core agreement requires special skill and multi-layeredness.
And, yes, the graduates of the Latvian Academy of Arts audiovisual program “Movement. Picture. Sound”, which is the only place in Latvia to study animation, start with short films (like students of the Latvian Academy of Culture audiovisual program) and not one of them will go on. full-length, but we must not forget that the short film is a stable and important format in itself.
It is possible that animation is being reborn in the world today.
It manages to shake off the notion that Cartoons are for children only, that only fairy tales can be told in this form, or that there is only American Disney, and anime (a term used internationally for Japanese animation), which are well – known, huge industries around the world. For the first time in history, the Danish film “Flee” (“Flee”, 2021), which is a very difficult story about escaping from war – torn Afghanistan.
Drawn material gives a lot of free space to express what would not be possible to capture with the camera. Either these are past events that are no longer filmed, or too painful, complex, difficult subjects.
Animation deviates from realism and seems to offer the viewer a safe distance, but at the same time it turns out to be closer to reality than a “live” image, because it addresses the associative level of consciousness, creating a much deeper understanding of what is experienced on the screen.
If the task of feature films is often considered to be a direct representation of reality, then animation is given absolute freedom of expression – it is the art closest to the flow of subconscious images.
In the introduction, I would like to mention a phenomenon such as the new wave of Latvian animation. It is possible that its beginning could coincide with the opening of the already mentioned LAA study program in 2013 or the general revival of Latvian cinema after many years of crisis, but such pragmatic reasons alone cannot justify the unusual way of thinking that allows Latvians to create unique screenplays. It is clear that this is partly due to our long tradition of animation – young animators have grown up with what would be considered a marginal, unusual cinema elsewhere in the world. They have been familiar with the possibilities of animation since an early age, as they have seen “Fantadrom” (1985), “Pocket” (1983) or “Ness and Nessie” (1991). Consequently, they do not have to break or break anything in their understanding of cinema; they are already ready to create.
It is a bit unfair to use the word ‘new’ in relation to the content of this particular program, as most of these directors represent the middle generation, who have already proven themselves, but I think the preconditions for them were the same. And the younger generation of animators can learn not only from the masterpieces of the 20th century, but also from those created here.
Somehow it is difficult for Latvian (adult) animation to reach the local audience. Short films are winning marches at world festivals, but here you have to catch them in rare, specially curated screenings or look for them on streaming platforms.
Therefore, the appearance of these works on television is a very pleasant and welcome initiative. I hope to see more animations available, so that only those close to the film industry know about its success. After all, in the context of the world, we are also an animation superpower.
On June 16, at 10.20 pm, Anete Melece’s film “Kiosk”, Indra Sproģe’s “Introduction to the Epilogue”, as well as Lizete Upīte’s “Rīgas ceriņi” and “Nakts sétigas” will be shown on LTV7. After that, they will be available for a limited time on Replay.lv.
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