On October 22 at 19.00, the Riga International Film Festival (RIGA IFF) will present the Steve Loveridge‘s film ‘MATANGI / MAYA / M.I.A.’, within the programme FESTIVAL SELECTION – a showcase of films awarded with prestigious prizes and praised by the experts and audiences.

Matangi Arulpragasm is Maya to her friends and provocative international popstar M.I.A. to most of the world. She fled the Sri Lankan civil war with her family before the age of ten and relocated to the UK, leaving behind a father with alleged ties to the ‘Tamil Tigers’, a controversial rebel group. Her preoccupation with the immigrant experience isn’t the celebrity narcissism; it is her deeply rooted desire to speak against oppression and to lift up justice.

The film is drawn from a cache of personal tapes shot by the artist and her closest friends over the last 22 years. It reveals her innermost reflections on art, politics, identity and her battles with the music industry and mainstream media.