November is usually the time of several very important Latvian cultural events. The film industry celebrates its festivities by presenting the “Great Kristaps”, but the theater people gather for the biggest event of the theater’s life “Players’ Night”. In addition, it was planned that at the end of November, for the first time, an international documentary film festival “Artdocfest / Riga” would take place, but the Daile Theater would host the culmination of the theatre’s 100th anniversary.
The state of emergency declared, of course, has changed plans. It will not be possible to implement some of the intended, but some have been changed and adapted to the online format.
Centenary of Daile Theater
For a long time now, a very attractive, large poster has been displayed at the Daile Theater, which reads “Māra Zālīte. “Smile”. Premiere on November 20 ”. It is clear that this event will now take place on the scheduled date.
Marko Rass, Marketing and Communication Director of Daile Theater, points out that although performances will certainly not take place during an emergency, the actors will work in rehearsals and continue to work on the premieres “Smiļģis” and “Zemdegas” planned for November but now canceled. There are high hopes for them to show in January.
In November, on its 100th anniversary month, the theater will offer two digital projects.
One of them is being created in cooperation with the Latvian centenary office and portal “Delfi” called “Dailes teātrim 100”. In this project, we will show the audience the invisible side of the theater on how performances are made. Basically what happens behind the scenes. Starting from the idea of directing, scenography, production of decorations. Until what happens behind the scenes during the show. We will introduce the process of creating performances, so that the audience would be even more interesting when they come to the performances afterwards, ”reveals Rass.
The second digital project will be a costume exhibition “Closer to Nudity”, created by the artist Ilze Vītoliņa, which will feature about 40 costumes of theater performances, both historical and contemporary, from Ilmārs Blumbers’ “Joseph and his brothers” to Ilze Vītoliņa’s “Dangerous Communications”.
“The viewer will be able to walk through the exhibition digitally, looking at the costume visually, as well as receiving the story of the costume either from an actor who once wore it or still wears it, or from a costume designer who tells how he designed the costume,” Race.
Both digital projects will begin their journey to readers and viewers on November 19, which is the 100th anniversary of the Daile Theater.
“Players’ Night”
November 23, on the other hand, has been the “Players’ Night” award ceremony for many years. Also this year, they will take place, only, of course, in a very different format than usual. It will most likely be a program created by Latvian Television, but the creative team is currently working very intensively on the details in order to be able to organize everything according to the emergency situation, says Daiga Gaismiņa, the head of the Theater Workers’ Union.
It’s always easier to raise your hands, go to the bottom of the river and say “we can’t do anything.”
But we will do our best to make the show as interesting as possible, so that the most successful theatrical performances are properly honored.
I can’t say exactly how it will be implemented at the moment, ”admits Gaismiņa.
“Kristaps the Great”
The National Film Festival “The Great Kristaps” will also take place in spite of everything, but of course it will be different than planned. Movies will not be available in the cinema, and there will be no awards ceremony in the traditional format.
Ieva Romanova, the head of the Cinematographers’ Union, says: “Everything is changing. The program on the portal filmas.lv remains unchanged, but the program will be supplemented on the portal. There will be no live screenings in the cinemas, as they are closed, there will be an awards ceremony, but this time in a time-appropriate way – without spectators and also without the presence of nominees, they will be in different places in their studios or other places.
But it will all be seen on television, and you will be able to follow it, both learning a lot about the new films and which ones are the best. ”
The “Great Kristaps” takes place from November 12 to 15. All this time, on the website filmas.lv, viewers will have the opportunity to watch a selection of films nominated for the award, the premiere and a retrospective of the Lifetime Awards winner Kalvis Zalcmanis. In turn, the award ceremony in the already mentioned new format will be available live on November 15 on LTV1 and on the portal LSM.lv.
At the end of November, from the 26th, another big documentary film event “Artdocfest / Riga” was planned, but it carried over to April next year.
CONTEXT:
During the Covid-19 outbreak in the spring, an emergency situation was declared in Latvia to control the new coronavirus. The situation was stable in the summer, but the morbidity at the end of September fast increased. The government tightened security measures, but the incidence of Covid-19 continued to rise.
In November, in order to limit the spread of Covid-19 in Latvia, the government decided to re-declare a state of emergency in the country, which will be in force from November 9 to December 6, and during which there will be new, stricter restrictions.
In particular, all on-site public cultural events will be canceled and banned by 6 December. Museums, libraries, cultural centers and other cultural sites will be able to continue the work during the limited working hours – from 06.00 to 20.00, by refusing to organize events.
–
