The films screening of the Baltic Sea Documentary Film Forum organized by the National Film Center will take place from September 7 to 12. It includes two programs – a selection of the latest documentaries in the cinema “K.Suns” and the forum’s 25th anniversary program in free online screenings on the portal filmas.lv. While viewers are still gathering at the screens, industry representatives are preparing for the forum’s film project market. –
The Baltic Sea Documentary Film Forum in Riga has been taking place since 2006, but its quarter-century-old history dates back to the Danish island of Bornholm. “At that time, there was the Baltic Media Center, which was funded by the Danish government with the aim of promoting journalistic democracy in the Baltic States. Various courses were organized for journalists, including documentary filmmakers. At one point, the management of the Baltic Media Center realized that these people were ready to go international with their projects, and they decided to start organizing a project market. Its essence has not changed to this day –
documentary ideas on the one hand and potential funders of these ideas on the other are invited. Then the two sides meet at the same table.
The financiers listen to the ideas and hope that they also agree to finance them, ”explains Lelda Ozola, the head of the Creative Europe MEDIA Information Center, who was also present at the very first forum, on the Latvian Radio program Kultūras rondo.
This year, 18 film projects will be presented and three of them are from Latvia: “Bird Scarecrows” – director Laila Pakalniņa, “Father’s Children” – director Kārlis Lesiņš and “Stuck” – director Stanislavs Tokalovs.
“The Baltic Sea Documentary Film Forum helps directors better understand what they really want to say with this film and maybe also [atrast] way to say it better. [..] It is in such events that you finally find out, and it also opens its doors more widely, ”adds Lesiņš, who is participating in the forum for the second year.
One of the ways in which anyone can find out more about the projects that once took place as a result of the Baltic Sea Documentary Film Forum funding market is to look at the portal filmas.lv hosted cinema program,
opens the forum project manager Zane Balčus. The program brings together nine films presented at the forum between the late 1990s and 2020, which are still in their infancy. They will be available to viewers in Latvia from September 7 to 12 free of charge during certain screening times. On the closing day, some of the films will be available elsewhere in the world.
Opposite Shore Movie
Photo: Publicity image
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Along with the online anniversary program of the forum, a selection of the latest documentaries will be shown at the K.Suns cinema. “Our opening film in the cinema will be the work” Courage “by the Belarusian director Alaxia Paluyan. It is also one of the projects that participated in the forum last year, ”says Balčus. In it, Palujan follows three Belarusian Free Theater actors during the democratic protests in Belarus. There will also be a conversation with the film director on September 7 after the opening screening.
Movie “Courage”
Photo: Publicity image
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Also this year, there is no shortage of a documentary film, which will be accompanied by a discussion initiated by the topic.
This time it is a Czech film “Online” about child pornography on the Internet. The topic is, of course, very serious and very topical. What is interesting about the artistic setting of this film is that it is also such an experiment. In the film, we follow the way the directors of this film select the actors, selecting three young women who are already adults, but who have to play twelve-year-old girls. Their fake profiles are created on the Internet and then what happens next. During the ten days of this experiment, these girls were also contacted by almost two and a half thousand men who tried to get different types of reactions from them or [izteica] different types of offers, ”says the forum project manager. The discussion, which is planned after the September 8 session, will be moderated by psychotherapist Nils Sakss Konstantinovs, and will be attended by Iveta Ķelle, the head of “Papardes zieda”, psychotherapist Artūrs Utināns and Sanita Jakuševa, an expert of the State Probation Service.
Online Movie
Photo: Publicity image
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Salome Jazz, the director of the visually poetic Georgian film “Controlling the Garden” and René Sasha Johannsen, the director of the musical portrait “Seven Years with Lucas Graham”, will also join the talks with cinema-goers online on September 9 and 10. The selection of the latest documentaries will be complemented by the intimately silenced film about her mother, the legendary Jane Birkin “Charlotte for Jane” by the talented actress Charlotte Gainesburg. Before the film screening on September 10, introductory remarks will be made by film scientist, head of the National Film Center Dita Rietuma.
More information about the film program is available at the Baltic Sea Documentary Film Forum Homepage and cinema “K.Suns” Homepage.
It should be noted that on-site screenings will be possible upon presentation of a Covid-19 vaccination or disease certificate with an interoperable square code and identity document.
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