Continuing its search for an answer to the question “What is a music video?”, the Riga International Film Festival (RIGA IFF, 15–25 October) announces the line-up for its Baltic Music Video Competition. In a special screening at the festival’s main venue, the Splendid Palace cinema, this regionally unique celebration of Baltic audiovisual art will bring 11 of the past year’s most impressive music videos from across the Baltics to the big screen. Tickets for the Baltic Music Video Competition screening are available on the festival website, rigaiff.lv, and at Biļešu Serviss box offices. More information: rigaiff.lv/bmvc.

The music video is an ever-evolving creative landscape, where the untamed spirit of image and music comes to life, pushing the boundaries of form, content, and artistic expression. This year, the competition selection committee – music journalist Aiga Leitholde, film curator and critic Žulijens Nuhums Kulibali, producer Kris Mathur, rapper Prusax, director Julien Pujol and music manager Britt Randma – together with long-standing curator Žanete Skarule, has selected 11 ambitious and stylistically diverse music videos. The works share cinematic ambition and an unbridled passion for experimentation, constantly searching for new forms of audiovisual expression.

“This year’s screening feels like the season of departed souls: bygone genres and aesthetics return, filling contemporary sounds with mystical imagery. And although the music video, too, can sometimes feel like a format of the past, the competition programme and interest in it continue to grow every year, reminding us that some things do, after all, exist outside of time,”

says competition curator Žanete Skarule.

Over the years, the competition screening itself has become a dynamic meeting point for audiences and the Baltic music and audiovisual arts community. This year, genres, memories and images from the past will return to the big screen through a haze, infusing contemporary sounds with bittersweet nostalgia. The line-up features music videos for tracks by alejas, Bel Tempo, Vilniaus Energija, Solo Ansamblis, Vecera and Contact Sports, as well as the latest works by audiovisual artists Antons Georgs Grauds, Dāvis Cipsts, Veronika Gluškova, Elliott Power, Georgii Merkis and others.

The 11 music videos will compete for the competition’s main prize: a bronze rooster statuette and a EUR 1,000 cash award. The entries will be judged by an internationally acclaimed jury: director Saulius Baradinskas, producer Anna Bartók, Oulu Music Video Festival Executive Director Juhani Oivo, and production designers Mārtiņš Straupe and Kaia Tungal.

Tickets for the RIGA IFF Baltic Music Video Competition screening are available on the festival website (rigaiff.lv) or at Biļešu Serviss box offices. The Festival Pass is also available – your shortcut to every RIGA IFF programme screening in Riga.

Latvia’s largest celebration of cinema, RIGA IFF, will take place from 15 to 25 October at the festival’s home, Splendid Palace, as well as Forum Cinemas, the National Library of Latvia, the Rothko Museum in Daugavpils, Kino Cēsis, Siguldas devons and other venues. Over 11 days and more than 100 screenings, the programme, guided by the motto “YOU ARE HERE”, will serve as a reliable guide beyond the familiar film landscape, inviting audiences to discover unique stories, vivid emotions and highlights of contemporary cinema.

Follow the latest festival news at rigaiff.lv and on RIGA IFF’s social media channels, or subscribe to the RIGA IFF newsletter. RIGA IFF is made possible with support from the State Culture Capital Foundation, the EU programme “Creative Europe – MEDIA”, Riga City Council, the Investment and Development Agency of Latvia, and the National Film Centre of Latvia.