Fragments of lost time, discovered by chance and unfolded in cinematic language. Legendary filmmaker Laila Pakalniņa guides the viewer through a poem of moving and still images, transporting us into Latvia’s past from half a century ago – where an anonymous photographer documents people, things and places… and dwells on a memory of a cat.

The story begins with a set of exposed negatives that belong to Antons and his son Raitis. Lost in thought, the father dwells on the memory of a long-lost cat, quietly photographs his neighbours, a wandering piglet, everyday household scenes and a journey to the sea. Time folds in on itself and carries him to the city. Life itself is a roll of film with shots strung together in double and triple exposures, welcoming the doppelgangers of today into the frame. A curious dialogue unfolds between past and present – Instagrammable worlds come to life where the gaze is the medium.

The white plastic bag at the start of the black and white film marks the beginning of Pakalniņa’s hybrid piece. The bag once held film rolls with images, taken by an unknown photographer between 1968 and 1978. As cinematographer Gints Bērziņš was developing the negatives – a woman with flowers, a neighbour with bottles climbing over a fence –, Pakalniņa was inspired to turn them into a movie. The work, which premiered internationally at the Mar del Plata International Film Festival in Argentina, is a ritualistic summoning of time-induced patina, sound and vision. It is a swirling dance of motion, memory, and belonging, exploring the infinite possibilities of cinematic art. As the French avant-garde master Chris Marker might have put it, this is thinking in film by means of film.