As previously reported, the Icelandic director took the laurels in the feature film competition Hlinura Palmasona “Dievzeme” (2022), which came as no surprise, even though there were several strong competitors among the ten films in competition. The visually impressive story of the human and the timeless is still available until Wednesday night on the festival’s online platformand distributors promise that we will see it again in theaters early next year. And this is definitely a big screen movie that would be quite heretical to watch on a laptop.
A large number of films during the festival were also available on increasingly larger private screens. One of the few bonuses that the time of pandemic isolation has given us are various virtual solutions that help decentralize the culture.
The festival is no longer just a privilege of Riga residents, but has become accessible throughout the territory of Latvia.
It is desirable that the hybrid format with face-to-face and virtual projections will be maintained in the future. I also say this for selfish reasons, because even though Riga’s cinemas are easily accessible for me, the online platform gives me the opportunity to plan my time more successfully and watch more good cinema – this year I only missed one of the films scheduled due to overlapping screenings.
Increasing the quantity is always a good thing is a question that I am afraid to answer because after a very intense week I experienced absolute mental exhaustion and accidentally slept during my most anticipated screening, Salò di Pasolini or 120 days of Sodoma.
With all the fact that I, unlike my colleague who wrote diary of the partymostly I skipped various social events.
Instead, I managed to see all of Pasolini’s other films in the “In Kino Veritas” program, which annually focuses on the retrospective of an important filmmaker, and
I consider it a special privilege of the festival: to experience the classics on the big screen.
Although to a large extent film festivals are basically an opportunity to see “great films” before they appear in the repertoire (or pass through Latvia entirely), I really appreciate the exclusivity aspect. Flashbacks are an important part of it. The other part are films that otherwise would never make it to local screens. For example, the Swedish “These People” (2022), a human story told entirely in rhymes about the fear of loneliness, was a pleasant experience. The director said later that the film holds together so well because the script was written in “plain language” and then given to the rapper to rewrite it.
The news that one of the films seen at the festival will be included in the theatrical repertoire sometimes brings with it a small disappointment. It seems that some particularly exclusive experience, some piece of the magic of the festival has been taken away.
On the other hand, I’m thrilled to be able very soon to encourage people to go and see the absurdly awful (or horribly absurd) Selfish (2022), which turned out to be my favorite movie of the season.
When it comes to films that also exist outside the festival, local premieres should be mentioned. They were all sold out, proving once again that interest in Latvian cinema has strengthened. And not for nothing! We just got it size news for our films in other festivals, one of which is the premiere at the Riga IFF “Sisters” by Linda Olte (2022). Signe Baumane’s “My Project of Marriage” (2022), the opening film of the festival, has already amassed its basket of accolades and is now waiting to meet audiences in theaters. I highly recommend meeting him. Audience favorite (judging by ticket sales figures) was Matīs Kaža’s high school graduation drama “Neon Spring” (2022) with the poetess Marija Luiza Meļki in the main role and Tom Harjo’s meditation on the theme of love “Sēklis” (2022).
This year, the festival has given itself a thematic framework, giving several speeches on colonialism in the media environment of Eastern Europe as part of the “Focus on Ukraine” program in the middle of last week. Postcolonialism is currently one of the most relevant viewpoints through which to analyze the consequences of any kind of imperialism – both colonialism in its usual sense (i.e. the intrusion of Western powers into foreign, mostly equatorial territories) and colonialism cultural (for example, the world of cinema hollywoodization), and the situation in the countries of the former bloc of the USSR. It is the last aspect that has become particularly relevant in the context of the war in Ukraine. In two discussions – “How to decolonize the media” And “Westernization and Eastern European cinema“(both can be heard in the LSM.lv recording) – and the lecture by researcher Aniko Imres focused on how the West views and portrays Eastern European countries.
Inevitably, delving into the subject leads to the fact that every film seen at the festival can be seen through such a theoretical prism. There are several obvious examples. The Paraguayan “Eami” (2022) gives a name to a people pushed out of their usual environment, while maintaining the hope that home and the past cannot be taken away from a person.
Easy lynchings The main character of “Pacific Island Fiction” (2022) is a representative of imperial power in an exotic and aesthetic environment of the Pacific islands and does not realize how much he overestimates his own importance. Dissecting the power relations is, moreover, a frequent task of art. And, starting from colonialism, it is precisely this that crystallizes as the basis for most of the films seen – perhaps conclusions can be drawn about the era in which we live. Such rich experiences compressed over time often capture the general feeling of the world.
And my personal selection of sixteen films, chosen rather unintentionally, which I experienced in this IFF in Riga, makes me think of the crumbling of existing power structures and giving a voice to those who have been silent until now.
Overall, the festival experience has been consistently positive. I didn’t feel any disappointment, but neither was a shock (although because I missed “Salo”). Now the main question is: how to live with the end of the festival? The options offered: watch the winners of the “Dievzeme” competition (2022), read the Latvian translation of Pasolini’s book “Street Boys” opened during the IFF in Riga, listen to the recordings of the discussions and wait for what will continue the life of the screens in Latvia after the Festival. And after all, we will have a lot to watch this fall.
Par Riga IFF
This year, the Riga International Film Festival (Riga IFF) brings together local and international audiences for the ninth time for one of the most important film events in the Baltic Sea region: more than 100 films were screened in Riga from 13 to 23 October IFF program in presence and online, in 12 sections and 6 film competitions by local, European and world filmmakers.
In the ninth year of the festival, viewers are offered carefully selected news from the world’s leading film festivals, national film premieres and visions from brilliant authors. During the festival, a program of events was created, created in collaboration with the Kiev Critics ‘Week (Kiev Critics’ Week) – contemporary Ukrainian cinema program and an international series of discussions on postcolonialism in the media space.
