Making Films In Latvia - First Motion

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Another group of films could be titled “exotic stories” – unusual either in their
subject matter, attitude towards the portrayed, or both. How are You Doing, Rudolf
Ming? (Kā tev klājas, Rūdolf Ming?, 2010, dir. Roberts Rubīns) is a veritable
exception both in sentiment and subject. Its protagonist is a 13-year old boy, engaged
quite passionately in scripting, hand-drawing, projecting, and adding his own sound
effects to his own films. Despite the common bait of the “eccentric character”, this
film, whose motto could be “creativity conquers all odds” is refreshingly life-
affirming and naturally funny – a rare phenomenon in Latvian cinema.
Andis Mizišs, the author of the provocative Worm, has been constantly
working with less than usual subjects and geographic areas. His The Church will
Arrive in the Evening (Vienkārši pops, 2007), which portrayed a floating Russian
Orthodox church, situated on a barge, and its journey down the river through remote
villages in Russia, was followed in 2010 by Jaguar’s Corner (Jaguāra kakts, 2010),
set in Rincón del Tigre, Bolivia. It’s portrayal of a Latvian Baptist missionary
settlement, established in 1946, is a truly startling account of the clash between the
missionaries and their cause – the native tribe of Ayoero Indians there. The film
exposes the hypocritical, colonist and racist notions at the heart of the mission (at one
point, one of the missionaries confesses that “all the savages should be shot dead”),
and their persistence despite the fact that their attempts to “civilize” the local tribe
have proved a complete fiasco. The scenes of missionaries praying are juxtaposed
with indigenous people tearing up and greedily consuming pieces of meat around a
fire, accompanied by sounds of a traditional instrument, thus aptly signifying the
uncrossable bridge between the two cultures, with the missionaries remaining
separated from the Indians as much as by their notions as the high fences and
padlocks on their property, used to guard their belongings and ideas from thieves and
unwelcome influences. Apparently started as a research on the ex-pat countrymen, the
whole project gains an uncanny wider implications, tackling the notions of evolution,
race struggle, culture, and civilization.
The last body of films could be labeled as “poetic takes on quotidian routines”,
and although there are only a few filmmakers that could be related to this variety,
their work has been quite resonant in the context of national documentary cinema.
Laila PakalniĦa is, undoubtedly, the most distinguished and internationally acclaimed
of present-day Latvian directors, the only whose films have been included in the
official selection programmes of Cannes, Berlin, Venice, as well as Karlovy Vary,