A special feature of Laila Pakalniņa’s jubilee collection is the fact that it was created as a collection of cultural heritage heritage, looking up and digitizing early films as well, including study works and documentary short films from the 1990s, which were not publicly available until now, NKC pointed out. The research process has been carried out in close co-operation with the State Archive of Film and Photophono Documents of the National Archives of Latvia. From June 4, all films in the collection will be available to the public free of charge and without a time limit throughout Latvia.
Film director, screenwriter and producer Laila Pakalniņa is one of the brightest and most prolific representatives of author cinema in the history of Latvian cinema, a director with a consistent individual handwriting and a stable place in the world of cinema. Film researcher Inga Pērkone wrote about the director: “Laila Pakalniņa has no peers in the new times of Latvian cinema in the new times of Latvian cinema. At Locarno, Busan, Rome, Tallinn, Venice and other major film festivals, Leiputria (2004) and Fire (2007) were nominated for an Academy Award in the documentary and short film categories respectively. ”
Laila Pakalniņa and Gints Bērziņš, shooting of the film “Water” (2006)
Photo: Agnese Zeltina / National Cinema Center
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Laila Pakalniņa won the world’s first recognition in the mid-1990s, when her documentaries “Ferry” (1994) and “Mail” (1995), already made in the director’s special cinema language, received the “FIPRESCI” award at the Cannes Film Festival, NKC emphasized. Meanwhile, the jubilee collection shows that the very first study papers were written in a completely different style – journalistic documentations and interviews about political and social developments. Director Laila Pakalniņa explained: “The cinema I really wanted to make starts with” Lingerie “(1991), but the study period coincided with the events of the Awakening in Latvia, and we realized that it was almost a duty – for those who have cameras, you have to go and film what’s going on. “
As NKC explained, when Latvia regained its independence, Laila Pakalniņa returns to cinema and has been working intensively and regularly since the 1990s, filming almost every year. In 1991, a long, unshakable tandem with the director Gints Bērziņš was formed, in 1994 the sound director Anrijs Krenbergs joined the two, and in the following years the almost constant team confirms the importance of collaboration with professional like-minded people in the director’s handwriting. and Lithuanian colleagues.
Filming of Laila Pakalniņš’s film “Pizza” (2012)
Photo: Agnese Zeltina / National Cinema Center
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“Laila Pakalniņa made her first feature film in 1998, and” Kurpe “, which was also included in the program of the Cannes Film Festival, marks the basis for further development – Laila Pakalniņa, as a screenwriter and producer of her films, also retains the style of documentary observation. shows the very first short film of the game “Anna’s Christmas” (1992), where the elements of staging are very few). both the possibilities of black and white film and do not worry if her works do not fit into the schemes of classical cinema, “explained NKC.
Five full-length feature films are available in the anniversary collection of the portal filmas.lv – “Shoe” (1998), “Python” (2003), “Hostage” (2006), “Pizza” (2012) and “Ausma” (2015), all of which have had their world premiere major Class A film festivals (Cannes, Venice, Locarno, Rome, Tallinn). The collection also includes four short films from the cycle “Elements” (2006-2009), the main character of all these films is Mary, played by actress Guna Zariņa.
“Laila Pakalniņa’s documentaries have been made with an unshakable and persistent regularity since the early 1990s, creating a peculiar world as a mosaic in which the elements of image and sound create a multi-layered artistic structure,” the selectors emphasize. The centerpiece of the documentary may be a separate character (for example, “Theodore” (2006), “Ubāns” (1995), “Mārtiņš” (2002), “33 Beasts for Santa Claus” (2011) and others), phenomenon (“Walking” (1991), “Oak” (1997), “Bus” (2004), “Rumba” (2016), “Snow” (2012) and others), what a microworld (“Leiputrija” (2004), “About the Motherland” (2008), “Along the Road to Rubik” (2010), “Hotel and the Ball” (2014) and others); The range of films also includes the extremely conceptual “Short Film about Life” (2014) and the director’s own marathon (“Forty-two”, 2013), restrainedly quiet paintings of the seasons (“Zirdziņ, hallo!”, 2017) and international co-production. a cross-border study has been carried out (“Spoon”, 2019).
As noted by the Cinema Center, Laila Pakalniņa’s documentaries also document Latvia, not only in historical chronological order, but as a collage of separate elements arranged in the rhythms created by the author’s handwriting.
The collection of Laila Pakalniņa’s anniversary films can be viewed on the portal filmas.lv from June 4 for an indefinite period of time, thus supplementing the constantly available collection of Latvian cinema history.
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