The director’s coming of age in the Soviet Union with autobiographical bits and pieces. Ilze has a blue ribbon in her hair and coal-black eyes. As she is growing up, she is a schoolgirl immersed in ideology in the militarized environment of the town of Saldus. Soon, she grows weary of it all, as one “favorite war” is quickly followed by the next “war to be favorite”… Young Ilze matures, becoming aware of her family’s past, its contradictions, and her personal responsibility.

A clever, introspective family history collage, confidently striding towards new documentary honesty. At times, the director herself appears in live-action footage, strengthening her presence and confronting her on-screen alter ego and her understanding at that time. Burkovska-Jacobsen’s (My Mother’s Farm (2008)) Cold War diary comes in a documentary animation form that’s growing increasingly common over the past decade. The film has received two Lielais Kristaps national film awards and a total of six nominations.