Riga International Film Festival Riga IFF on Saturday, October 16, at 17 in the cinema Splendid Palace and online premiere of analog film director Signe Birkova’s full-length documentary Circle of fire in which the main role is played by the theater troupe Quadrifrons – the eleven letters are decoded by the members of the association themselves as an organization which “walks with friends, is sometimes phenomenally creative and not stupid”. Quadriphron The activity began with the gathering of a theater troupe in the more than one hundred and thirty-year-old Riga Circus building, where the smell of elephants can still be felt.
Stable as a stage
“Even before Quadriphron Daniela Zacmane, a cinematographer working in the circus building, gave me a can of 35 years of film with the life of the Riga circus in the 1950s, ” Fire circle The director tells the origins of this benefit, which together with the then impressions of the circus building has prompted to capture the mental and physical territory of the paradigm shift, because at one point the use of animals, strange decadent aesthetics and other circus expressions have become unacceptable. At that time, together with the cameraman Dāvids Smiltiņš, they managed to film a horse stable with the sounding halls in it before it became a stage.
Over time, this idea has transformed into an idea of focusing not on the circus, but on the founders of the theater, young stage artists, and the four tigers immortalized on 35 mm film, forced to jump through a circle of fire for fear of flame.
The famous French clown Slava Polunin, who lives in France, has been chosen as the dialogue partner of the actors in the documentary as the unifying element between the circus and the theater, even though they have never met in their lives. “The clown plays with the world – he does it naively and at the same time infinitely deep. That is the essence of acting,” says Slava Polynin, Fire circle the team has filmed in his fantastic “clown” oasis Yellow milllocated a forty – minute drive from Paris. It is an area of several hectares, full of installations, dream houses, artists’ residences, fabulous and incomprehensible objects.
Life in fragility
“I realized that I want to create a documentary that confirms the present of Latvia, because now in our cinema scene many works are related to historical personalities and their heritage, and to tell a story about how theater comes from nothing. It is still a mystical occupation, with what people feel called to do – exactly the call, because the theater requires living in fragility and at the same time being in shape and a willingness to jump into the crazy trolleybus led by the director, “emphasizes Signe Birkova. She adds that even in the Middle Ages, when living conditions were many times more difficult, there were people with colored faces and unusual cloths who ran out in front of the crowd and started showing something, and through it viewers saw the world a little differently than they used to see it before. tam.
The main characters of the documentary are Ance Strazda, Āris Matesovičs, Klāvs Mellis and Reinis Boters, who have not been invited to any Latvian theater troupe after graduating from the Latvian Academy of Culture. What to do next? Start something else or not give up, believe in your own strength, gather like-minded people and create theater, but it can just as well be applied to any other industry.
“I’m fascinated by the way they do it – it’s all light and playful, just like children, so they also have adorable performances for family audiences,” says the director, and is pleased to have had the opportunity to be present. Quadriphron in the beginning, when there is no fatigue or tiredness, but there is a huge amount of energy that overcomes all obstacles, and people are allowed to follow their inspiration and create performances only about what really interests them. It’s a pure flight, emphasizes Signe Birkova, who has created a documentary as an adventure, without boundaries between subjective events, objective rituals and the birth of performances, juggling between comic and serious.
Increasing the contrast
Most Fire circle is recorded in analog format. “Dāvids Smiltiņš and I are supporters of the cult of analogue cinema, so we chose to film on 16 mm film to encapsulate the present with an eternally affected camera – in our case it was 16 mm Arriflex, “reveals the director and adds that for financial reasons they have also looked for other ways of capturing the present. Producer Uldis Cekulis has recommended the huge Sony Betacam, with which the operator has traveled through the labyrinths of the Riga circus.
“Legend has it that this could have been Juris Podnieks’ camera – it could be true, but it might not be as good,” says Signe Birkova. She believes that the moments captured with this camera are very psychedelic and successfully match the kitsch of the Riga circus and the corridors filled with phantoms of the past. The use of these two cameras has made it possible to increase the contrast between the building and the vital element embodied Quadrifrons, which has already moved to new temporary premises.
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