The Riga International Film Festival, which will be held from October 17 to 27, will feature the national premieres of several Latvian films that have already received acclaim at other international film festivals, including "Immortal", which received the Grand Prix at Karlovy Vary, and Laila Pakalniņa's black and white film "Spoon". Kārlis Lesiņš' drama on depression – “The Despair”, with Kaspars Zāle in the lead role – will also be shown on the big screen for the first time, as will the Latvian-German co-production “The Birth of the Leopard”, a documentary about a legendary love story linking the Latvian town of Stāmeriene with Sicily.

National film premieres at RIGA IFF provide the opportunity for a growing number of respected film professionals from around the world to see the latest Latvian films and their premieres on the big screen right here in Riga. A premiere of a Latvian film is always a special event for the festival as it creates a wonderful opportunity to acknowledge national cinema and participate in celebrating the achievement. Sometimes a film makes its national premiere after it has already been screened for competitions at prominent foreign film festivals, which is the case this year with “Away” and “Spoon”; at other times, it is local audiences who will first see the film on the big screen, as it is this year with Kārlis Lesiņš’ “The Despair” and Emīls Alps’ “Choir. Conductor. Kamēr…”. RIGA IFF also invites audience to celebrate Latvian cinema.

On October 19, the film “The Despair” – award-winning director Kārlis Lesiņš’ feature-length debut featuring Kaspars Zāle, Alise Danovska, Līga Zeļģe and Vita Vārpiņa – will see its premier. The film is about Gatis, a freelancer who is struggling with depression and the modern-day affliction of burnout. He goes to his childhood home to rest, recover and clear out his mind, but accidentally ends up in a strange, cult-like therapy group that appears to aid the healing process, yet also uncovers the dark corners of Gatis’ subconsciousness as he comes to face childhood traumas and ghosts from the past. Going back home becomes a tough psychological struggle with both one’s self and one’s past. Kārlis Lesiņš, the film’s director and screenwriter, admits that this is a very personal and painful subject for him. ‘Yes, I have gone through something similar myself. I wanted to tell others about it because I know that I am not the only one – many will identify with the subject,’ reveals the director, who is a veteran recipient of two ‘Lielais Kristaps’ National Film Awards.

A significant page of European history directly related to Latvia will be opened by the Latvian-German co-production “The Birth of the Leopard”, which will be coming to Riga immediately after its world premiere at the Hamburg Film Festival. The protagonist of the film is Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, known worldwide for authoring the Italian best-selling novel The Leopard. (The 1963 screen version directed by Luchino Visconti and starring Claudia Cardinale and Alain Delon received the Grand Prix at Cannes and is considered a masterpiece.) Legend has it that Tomasi wrote part of the novel in Latvia while visiting his Baltic-German wife, Alexandra von Wolff-Stomersee, at Stāmeriena Castle. The film is laid out as the recounting of relationships; it is about an unusual love, about friendship through years of hardship, banishment and loss, and about the determination to not lose oneself during times of great change and to constantly rediscover oneself. The film’s score is by Kārlis Auzāns and features actresses Karīna Tatarinova and Sarmīte Vucāne. With costume design by Berta Vilipsone, the film was produced by Gints Grūbe and Elīna Gediņa-Ducena.

At RIGA IFF audiences will be able to finally see “Immortal”, the Estonian-Latvian documentary film that received the Grand Prix at Karlovy Vary. The film allows viewers to see a different angle of how a Russian citizen is ‘produced’. The film’s director, Ksenia Okhapkina, went with a film crew to northern Russia to a former gulag where political prisoners and deportees were once imprisoned. The film uncovers the mechanism that encourages people to voluntarily deny their personal individuality and become a serviceable resource of the state. The ultimate goal of these people is to give their lives to the ‘Motherland’, thereby achieving immortality. ‘This is a film about people who have been brought up by propaganda,’ says Okhapkina. ‘Having made this film, I have a better understanding of what is happening in Russia – why people support a government and political system that work against them and their children.’ The screenplay was co-authored by Pauls Bankovskis, who spent a lot of time in conversation with the film’s director.

The second film to have made its world premiere at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival but its Latvian premier as part of the RIGA IFF Feature Film Competition programme is Laila Pakalniņa's documentary “Spoon”. The film follows the lengthy life-cycle of a simple plastic spoon – from black crude oil to a white spoon, the life purpose of which is exactly one meal. The film was made in black and white because as the director says: crude oil is black and the spoon is white. This currently very relevant ecological theme of illustrating the absurdity of modern consumer society – produce, use, throw away – has been packaged in artistic high-quality form by cameraman Gints Bērziņš, a co-author of nearly twenty of Pakalniņa’s films. Unlike many of Pakalniņa's films which are usually shot only in Latvia, the geographical scope behind “Spoon” is very broad – material for the film was also sourced from Lithuania, Norway, China, Hong Kong and Azerbaijan; the film is a co-production of Latvia, Lithuania and Norway.

Emīls Alps’ documentary “Choir. Conductor. Kamēr…” tells the story of the famous youth choir's journey journey to the Tolosa Choral Competition, at which the grand prize must be won to qualify for the European Grand Prix for Choral Singing. The film’s director had the opportunity to capture moments that are usually hidden from outsiders. Created by a choir member, the film offers unprecedented insight into the singers' passion for music and the overcoming of difficulties.

Several short films by Latvian filmmakers will see their national premieres as part of the RIGA IFF programme SHORT RIGA.

Over eleven days, the Riga International Film Festival, which will take place from October 17 to 27, will screen 148 films within eleven thematic programmes and competitions. The full festival schedule and tickets to all screenings can be obtained at the festival’s website: rigaiff.lv.

RIGA IFF is supported by the Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia, the National Film Centre, Live Riga, and the Riga City Council.  

This year, for the sixth instalment of the Riga International Film Festival all industry events will be gathered under the name RIGA IFF FORUM. By taking a look into the festivals guest list, one can feel captivated – FORUM will welcome board members of the European Film Academy, Baltic animation industry experts, and virtual reality enthusiasts. It will serve as a platform for foreign guests of the festival and Latvian film professionals to meet and exchange their experiences and ideas.

The first weekend of the festival is planned to be extraordinarily splendid, starting with film screenings and continuing with virtual reality hackathon and discussions about the current developments in Baltics' animation industry.

Virtual reality is a rapidly growing audiovisual medium that expands the possibilities and boundaries of cinematic language, for these matters festival once again has teamed up with the interactive production house Story Hub, to host the second edition of RIGA IFF GOES VR, which will include inspirational lectures and Magnetic Latvia hackathon.

In the meantime, taking place from October 18 to 19,  BALTIC ANIMATION MEET-UP will be held, including animation studio and individual filmmaker portfolio presentations, as well as panel discussions on the acute issues currently confronting the animation industry in the Baltics.

Not to mention that this year RIGA IFF has the honour of hosting the European Film Academy Board Members for their annual board meeting. Some of EFA’s members, including the director Agnieszka Holland, will also participate in MAGNETIC LATVIA FILM CONFERENCE lectures and discussions. The conference hosted by Investment and Development Agency of Latvia (LIAA) will be dedicated to film market development in Northern Europe. The first day of the conference and the arrival of EFA Board Members will be celebrated at RIGA IFF FORUM NETWORKING EVENT, where international guests and Latvian film industry professionals will have an opportunity to get acquainted.

The RIGA IFF FORUM Baltic short film presentations for experts will take place on 24th and 25th of October. SHORT RIGA: TEST SCREENINGS are closed screenings of short films by Baltic directors, after which an international panel of experts provide evaluation and recommendations. In addition to Test Screenings, the SHORT RIGA guests and Baltic artists who are working in short moving image format will be invited to SHORT RIGA: WHAT'S UP? –  an informal event with no protocol and only one rule: 5 minutes for presentation and 5 minutes for questions.

More information about each event and registrations: forum.rigaiff.lv

You are cordially invited to MAGNETIC LATVIA FILM CONFERENCE that is hosted by Investment and Development Agency of Latvia (LIAA) at the sixth Riga International Film Festival (RIGA IFF).

Magnetic Latvia Film Conference is dedicated to film market development in Northern Europe. The event is another step in positioning Latvia as a B2B location on the international market. Furthermore, Conference opens an opportunity to prepare Latvian and regional filmmakers for the markets, therewith ensuring the efficiency of their market attendance and raising the business success. Conference will be attended by a number of renowned figures of world cinema as well as young, talented and passionate filmmakers.

Explore the full programme and register for the conference and/or locations tour here: forum.rigaiff.lv

In the course of the first day of the Conference, speakers will address the challenges and factors, which relatively small countries should consider for international marketing when entering major global markets and highlighting the value of local production on the global arena.

On the second day of the Conference, guests will be invited to gain a fabulous experience and enduring memories on the locations tour – Latvia’s geographic position has made it a bone of contention for various empires, but we are proudly keeping alive our cultural diversity, polishing our historical values and adoring our various landscapes.

As the director of LIAA Andris Ozols says: “This is another step in positioning Latvia as a catching location on the map of international movie market. We are glad to give filmmakers the opportunity to pursue new challenges, to provide a better understanding of international markets, thus contributing to their business growth and creative accomplishments.”

The Film Conference will take place at AB Dam in Riga on 18–19 October 2019. During the conference director Agnieska Holland, producers Julie Baines, Katriel Schory and animation talent consultant Shelly Page will discuss how to get small country products into the big markets. Furthermore, Jonathan Olsberg and Jānis Kalējs will speak about the potential of Baltic film industry. And additionally, speakers will address the future of the industry, as well as the local production value in the global landscape and how to influence people's decision-making process in a fast-changing world.

The 2019 edition of the international Astra Film Festival in Sibiu, which will take place between 14 and 20 October, presents a series of exceptional documentaries that propose a deep reflection on the past for a better understanding of the present reality. The films are directed by some of the most important voices of universal cinema, such as Werner Herzog and Sergei Loznitsa, and they focus on titans of history Joseph Stalin and Mikhail Gorbachev but also on key moments in recent Romanian history - the ‘89 Revolution, then and now.

”State Funeral”, the most recent film directed by Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa, will have its Romanian premiere during the Opening Gala of Astra Film Festival 2019 on Monday, 14 October, from 7:00 PM at Thalia Hall. The film, which recently had its worldwide premiere at the Venice Film Festival, explores the impact of Stalin’s death in 1953 on the entire Soviet Union and captures the moment of the burial as a climactic point in the dictator’s cult of personality. Loznitsa employs his unmistakable style in dissecting this “Great Farewell” through a montage of rare and long-forgotten archive footage. The screening will be followed by a discussion with Emil Hurezeanu, the Romanian ambassador in Berlin, starting from Loznitsa’s film, on the nature and legacies of communist regimes that are still haunting the contemporary world.

The documentary ”State Funeral” is competing in the Central & Eastern Europe competition and a second screening will be held on Friday, 18 October, 12:00 PM at Astra Film Cinema 2. Sergei Loznitsa, a close friend of the Astra Film Festival in Sibiu, received the “Astra Film Grand Prize” in 2014 for his documentary “Maidan”.

Another memorable meeting proposed by Astra Film Festival this year is Werner Herzog’s documentary, ”Meeting Gorbachev”. In the current international context dominated by dire forecasts, Herzog revisits some of the most remarkable achievements of the visionary Gorbachev, former General Secretary of the USSR, such as his involvement in ending the Cold War, his negotiations with the USA for reducing nuclear weapons or stopping the Soviet control on Eastern Europe. The documentary will be screened on Thursday, 17 October, 6:00 PM, at Thalia Hall and on Saturday, 19 October, 1:00 PM, at Cinema Ion Besoiu – Large Hall. The documentary is part of the Great Masters section. 

Since this year marks the 30 year anniversary of the 1989 Revolution and the fall of Communism, Astra Film Festival brings on the big screen a fragment of this macro-event documented by director Dobrivoie Kerpenisan in his native village near Timișoara. The film ”Rebels with a cause” begins with those images and reaches the protagonists of these events as they are today. This experience reignites the fear and the courage felt during those days but also their past hopes and dreams for a better future. The documentary is included in the Romania competition and will have its worldwide premiere on Friday, 6:00 PM, at Thalia Hall, followed by a further screening on Saturday, 19 October, 3:00 PM, at Cinema Ion Besoiu – Large Hall. 

The entire programme of Astra Film Festival 2019 is available here: https://www.astrafilm.ro/en/program/

Astra Film Festival Sibiu is held under the High Patronage of the Romanian Presidency.

Astra Film Festival 2019 is coordinated by Astra Film, CNM Astra and the Astra Film Foundation, with the support of the Sibiu County Council, the Ministry of Culture and National Identity and the National Center of Cinematography. The event is co-financed by the Sibiu Local Council through the City Hall of Sibiu.

Climageddon, The Changing Woman, Re:Democracy, God & Co., Made in China – and most of all:  How Not To Be Afraid. These are the main topics covered by this year’s Inspiration Forum organised under the banner of the twenty-third Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival. Make sure your last weekend in October will be dedicated to the “festival of thought”. 

This year, the Inspiration Forum will take place for the ninth time. In the course of six festival days, it will open up six key topics and present over one hundred guests from all over the world, in more than thirty discussions. 

“Live discussions after the screenings are an integral part of the Ji.hlava IDFF and often the reason why many directors and visitors alike keep on coming back. However, the Inspiration Forum gave the festival a brand new dimension. I have long dreamt of creating a comprehensive discussion platform that will bring together educated and curious festival audience with inspiring personalities in a focused discussion format and I am very thrilled to see it happening in the past few years. A live dialogue is priceless and I am very happy that guests and debaters literally stepped out of the film screen directly to the audience,” says Marek Hovorka, the director of the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival and founder of the Inspiration Forum.

“The first step towards the transformation of the Inspiration Forum was made two years ago while last year, we finished the changes to create an authentic ‘festival of thought‘ which takes place concurrently with the film programme of the Ji.hlava IDFF. Topics, which will this year be discussed during debates, presentations, interviews and documentary dialogues were carefully selected and formulated. We believe that they are a key to better future. Because in order to change the world or at least to survive the threats we are facing, we have to understand the things around us a bit more: in civic, political as well as personal terms,” says Tereza Swadoschová, the Head of Inspiration Forum, summing up its purpose.

Climageddon!

What will you find on this year’s programme? Bill McKibben, a notable American environmentalist, will talk about the climate crisis as a challenge. His book The End of Nature published in 1989 provided a visionary account of today’s climate situation. Following will be Sini Harkki, the Head of Greenpeace Finland, who greatly contributed to the reduction of the consumption of fossil fuels in her country, and the chief of the Irish Green Party, Eamon Ryan, under whose term, the capacity of wind electric power plants in Ireland doubled. “The guests were chosen not only to sum up the existing media debate but also to discuss what to do next. The means of social transformation will be discussed not only with experienced agents in the field of environmental protection but also with the upcoming generation,” said Tereza Swadoschová commenting on the selection of the guests. 

This year, the environmental topic will also be reflected in the section of Documentary Dialogues selected and moderated by documentarian Filip Remunda. In an interview, we will introduce Isabella Salton, director of Brazilian 

environmental organisation Instituto Terra, who fights for the protection of Brazilian forest that the current president Jair Bolsonaro opened to the possibility of commercial use. 

The Changing Woman

One whole day will be dedicated to the debates on the position of women in society.  “Which are the ways that can bring us closer to the ideal of gender equality? What can be done and how in the sphere of politics, business, industry, education and healthcare? How to change the attitude to feminism so that the mere word is no longer regarded a slur?” says Swadoschová enumerating some of the questions that will be addressed. The topic of The Changing Woman will be discussed by Fawzia Koofi, an advocate for women rights and a candidate for the president of Afghanistan, or Slovak actress, diplomat and former presidential candidate Magda Vašáryová. 

Documentary Dialogues will present Dagestani writer Alisa Ganieva. Her debut, Salaam, Dalgat! had to be published under a male pseudonym to avoid the label “a story for women“. 

Re: Democracy

Another big topic of the ninth Inspiration Forum is the crisis of a democratic society. “How to involve the citizens in the decision-making process again? Which reforms should we be striving for? And how to deal with the issue of short election cycles which do not provide space for long-term visions?” says Tereza Swadoschová, asking some of the questions that will be brought up in debates on the next day. And who will be the debaters? “For instance, Sophie Howe, who has for three years been in office as the ‘future generations commissioner‘ in Wales. She caters to the needs of future generations, evaluates governmental projects from the long-term perspective and intervenes in situations when short-term profit could cause long-term losses,” add Tereza Swadoschová.  Another guest will be the political scientist and NATO’s strategic communication specialist, Jonathan Terra, who worked as a diplomat in Afghanistan. As a political analyst and commentator he writes about the state of democracy in the USA. 

Documentary Dialogue will introduce Croatian philosopher and political activist Srećko Horvat. 

How Not To Be Afraid

Environmental disasters, fake news, wars for water and resources, terrorism, end of the world. These catastrophic scenarios are slowly becoming an integral part of our everyday existence. This year, the Ji.hlava IDFF will also discuss “how to stop being afraid” of these visions and not to be paralysed by fear. The guests will include British futurologist Jonathan Ledgard, author of the cargo drone and droneport concept for Africa, or a former follower of German ultranationalist right-wing groups, Christian Weissgerber. “It is true that when I was young, I was feeling helpless and one of the ways of overcoming my despair was humiliation of others,” says the former Neo-Nazi.

Documentary Dialogue will feature the American of Mexican origin, writer and former border guard, Francisco Cantú. His novel, The Line Becomes a River, which draws on his own experience on the borderline between two worlds, has become a bestseller.

China and God

Another sphere of interest of this year’s Inspiration Forum is China. A country watched by the whole world – and watching the whole world. How does their combination of totalitarianism and capitalism work? How does the regime employ current technological possibilities to take control? What does China want from the world and what does the world want from China? These and similar issues will be the focus of a full-day block called Made in China. Norwegian political scientist Stein Ringen or Czech analyst Tomáš Rezek who is engaged with cyber safety and criminality will be one of those answering the questions.

A day block called God & Co. will then focus on the topic of Catholic Church, its role in today’s world, and its further developments. The guest will be the first Czech military chaplain, Bishop Tomáš Holub. He is one of the more progressive Catholic representatives: clearly denouncing nationalism just as the “building of ideological barricades against gender”.

 

And, finally, the Inner World

The Inspiration Forum also keeps in mind those who like to get up early. In a daily early morning programme entitled Inner World. “Extraordinary figures from the world of culture and arts will be our guests. They will discuss the ten points talking about what inspired them in their work, both in terms of meetings with others, situations or works of art,” says Tereza Swadoschová describing the format. The guests will include Bulgarian poet Kapka Kassabova whose works explore boundaries of all kinds. “It is important to be open and to listen, to try to understand each other despite the things that separate us. Now more than ever,“ says Kassabova. Lama Sonam Tsering has a similar opinion. For fourteen years, he has been studying as a monk in a Buddhist monastery in Northern India, but he decided to leave; today, he runs a Tibetan food stall in Prague.

9th Inspiration Forum will take place as part of 23rd Ji.hlava IDFF on October 24–29, 2019

http://www.ji-hlava.com/inspiracni-forum

 

Partners of Inspiration Forum:

Ministry of Culture Czech Republic

International Visegrad Fund

Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung

Charity Czech Republic

Palacký University Olomouc

Gender Equality Department Office of the Government of the Czech Republic

Slovak-Czech Women’s Fund

Creative Europe Desk Czech Republic

The Czech Christian Academy

Aktualne.cz

Salon Právo

Radio Wave

Greenpeace

City.cz 

Voxpot

The Riga International Film Festival (RIGA IFF), which will be held for eleven days from October 17 to 27 this year, is going to feature 148 films across 11 themed sections and competition programmes – bringing together contemporary cinema and classics, festival hits by renowned directors as well as courageous debuts. As of September 26, all the tickets are on sale; many of the films will be shown only once, exclusively at RIGA IFF.

The sixth Riga International Film Festival will open with a celebratory reception in the evening of October 17, finally providing Latvian viewers access to the new local animation talent Gints Zilbalodis’ feature Away, which has garnered rave reviews from viewers and critics alike, and has earned him the Contrechamp award at the prestigious Annecy International Animation Film Festival.

The centrepiece FESTIVAL SELECTION includes 12 exceptional motion pictures recently screened at major festivals. It will open on October 19 with Cannes Palme d’Or laureate, Parasite by Bong Joon-ho – an elegantly effortless mixture of drama, thriller, black comedy with elements of farce depicting a relationship between two families: the rich and the abjectly poor. The festival will present the only big-screen viewing of Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir – a dark relationship drama with autobiographical origins set in 1980s London, starring Honor Swinton Byrne alongside her mother, film diva Tilda Swinton. Other not-to-miss singular screenings include U.S. film critic, screenwriter and director Roger Ebert’s The Lighthouse – a black and white horror drama with Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe that shook up the auteur cinema space in 2019 – and Beanpole by promising young Russian director Kantemir Balagov, who took inspiration for his film from The Unwomanly Face of War, Nobel Prize laureate Svetlana Alexievich’s 1985 book of documentary stories.

Latvian audience will be happy to hear that the NORDIC HIGHLIGHTS section includes 11 films from Nordic countries this year. This section will cover the gamut from exquisite visual pleasure (Out Stealing Horses), to passionate, brave and unbelievably candid works. Two of the latter are extremely heartfelt yet very different stories of men coping with the loss of women they love. In Dogs Don’t Wear Pants, shot in Riga by Finnish film director J-P Valkeapää, a husband tries to deal with the death of his wife by probing the inner fringes of his pain tolerance in S&M sessions; A White, White Day by Hlynur Pálmason of Iceland features a former police officer obsessed with finding out the truth and exacting his revenge. The phenomenon of white nights, a feature of Iceland’s Arctic latitudes that makes night-time skies as white as land, catalyses these profound pain states. Both screenings will be made more special by the presence of their creative teams – Dogs Don’t Wear Pants director J-P Valkeapää and A White, White Day star Ingvar Sigurdsson will attend to the Latvian premieres. The NORDIC HIGHLIGHTS selection includes a treat for admirers of Sweden’s great Roy Andersson – For Infinity is his latest feature, a divine comedy of the tragicomic nature of life. The director, whose unique handwriting is virtually a genre of its own, is not a pessimist but looks earnestly at the truth of the eternal tale of life as a tragedy where nobody comes out the winner.

Looking out towards new horizons, RIGA IFF reaches across the ocean to bring the NEW CANADIAN CINEMA section to Latvia. On October 23, it will offer an exclusive screening of Ghost Town Anthology, reminiscent of Latvian folk mystery, with a Q&A session by its author Denis Côté – one of Quebec’s most peculiar and internationally recognised directors. The following day, attendees are welcome to view The Death and Life of John F. Donovan, Xavier Dolan’s feature premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival: a condemnation of the cruelty and prejudice American cinema and TV star John had suffered due to his sexual orientation. Donovan’s seventh feature film stars a constellation of brilliant actors.

This year’s festival will be notable for its tech slant, as the RIGA IFF retrospective and research programme IN TECHNO VERITAS provides a treatment of the interactions between humans and technology through classical films. The festival’s guest curator, film theoretician Viktors Freibergs, invites us for a closer look at works of cinema that have awed and inspired many generations of admirers and creators. The section will open with Stanley Kubrick’s legendary 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Made in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut Riga, BERLINALE 2019 RIGA provides an annual glimpse at some of the Berlin International Film Festival’s most brilliant features, representing the expressive power and diversity of German cinema. The section will open on October 23 with Nora Fingscheidt’s feature-length story about a nine-year-old girl’s desperate attempt to find home and heart in System Crasher. Her picture proves that one can touch upon very uncomfortable topics and still be paraded through a head-spinning series of international festivals.

Our festival’s international FEATURE FILM COMPETITION will showcase 10 films produced in the Baltic Sea region, including Latvian director Laila Pakalniņa’s documentary, Spoon. Kaur Kokk carries the Estonian tradition of folk gothic cinema established by Rainer Sarnet with The Riddle of Jaan Niemand. Scandinavian Silence by another Estonian director, Martti Helde, and Lithuanian master Algimantas Puipa’s The Other Side of Silence will explore the Baltics’ most powerful trait of being unable to talk about what hurts. Yrsa Roca Fannberg documents the last autumn of an Icelandic sheep farmer. Paweł Ziemilski’s In Touch projects images on the surfaces of various spaces, objects and body parts to visualise longing and family isolation in a small Polish village.

The ARTDOCFEST/RIGA selection, as always, combines challenging documentary cinema and discussions with film creators and guests. ARTDOCFEST/RIGA opens on October 21 with School of Seduction, a film that took director Alina Rudnitskaya seven years of peering into the lives of three women that attended a psychologist’s course on seducing wealthy men in search of a prosperous life.

Traditionally, the first weekend at RIGA IFF is devoted to families and children, with the KIDS WEEKEND section at Splendid Palace, Riga’s oldest and most distinguished cinema, screening an all-day selection of European live-action films for children and animation films for the youngest film lovers. Like each year, we also have a rich selection of works at SHORT RIGA, while the HOME MADE section is devoted to animation this year. For the second year, the National Library of Latvia will be hosting the ARCHITECT'S CUT section, screening films selected in co-operation with architect Ieva Zībarte.

RIGA IFF will also be holding an event programme for industry professionals, public discussions, and meetings with the people behind many of the wonderful pictures being screened. The festival will conclude with an award ceremony recognising the winners of the feature, short film and music video competitions.

The full festival programme and tickets to all screenings are available on the festival’s website, rigaiff.lv.

RIGA IFF is possible thanks to the support of the State Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia, the National Film Centre of Latvia, Live Riga, Investment and Development Agency of Latvia (LIAA) and the Riga City Council.