The 12th edition programme of the Riga International Film Festival (RIGA IFF, 16–26 October) will feature a special screening – the world premiere of director Jānis Ābele’s documentary detective story The Last Will. Inviting the audiences along on a surreal journey in time and space, The Last Will tells the tale of the final wish of the poet and master of the Latvian detective genre Anatols Imermanis (1914–1998) – for his ashes to be scattered in the streets of the red-light districts of Western Europe. 

20 years after the passing of Anatols Imermanis, the bohemian poet and one of the founders of the detective genre in Latvia, his spirit returns to whisk us along on his last detective story. Over time, his remains have been lost, but his final wish – for his ashes to rest in the red-light districts of Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, and other Western European metropolises – has not been fulfilled. With elements of a documentary film mixed with a detective in a surreal screen adventure, perennial motifs of poetry, love, and death echo between the past and the present, and Aleksandrs Zapoļs, also known as poet Semjons Haņins, decides to carry out Imermanis’ wish.

“They say there are no original stories, only original ways to tell them. When on the eve of the premiere of our previous collaboration Jānis Joņevs told me the legend of the last wish of Anatols Imermanis, I knew right away that this would be enough material for at least a documentary short. Moreover, it was a story the likes of which I’d never seen or heard before. 

Over years, the short grew to a feature film story. During this detective adventure we couldn’t shake the feeling that the rebel spirit of Imermanis was with us. I guess Olivier Assayas was right in describing cinema as nothing more than summoning spirits. The Last Will made me one hundred percent sure of this,”

– his debut in feature documentary film, due to celebrate its world premiere at RIGA IFF, is described by director Jānis Ābele.

Known to wider audiences as the director of the 2019 film Jelgava ’94, based on the Jānis Joņevs novel of the same name, and the author of several shorts, among them works screened in RIGA IFF Short Film National Competition, Ābele makes a bold mark with his directorial debut in the hybrid genre of documentary detective. Blending a revisionist exploration of the nineties’ bohemian scene with a metaphorical and literal lay-bare directness, The Last Will shuns the tameness characteristic of biopics. Instead, displaying almost infectious love of French New Wave, the director expertly spins the narrative thread, repeatedly taking the audiences on unexpected twists and turns and making us re-evaluate our cultural heritage. The screenwriter Jānis Joņevs steers clear of the clichéd tropes of Riga as the little Paris, instead leading the viewers into the memories of the soviet era literary elite and little known erotic and biographical secrets.

The first tickets, festival passes, and a limited number of special early bird 10-ticket packages will be available from 17 July. Until the full festival line-up announcement in September, RIGA IFF will continue to reveal other significant and highly artistic works of this year’s programme – films awarded at Rotterdam, Berlin, Cannes, Venice, and other film festivals, as well as bold hidden gems of contemporary cinema. Uniting both local audiences and international guests, the programme will be screened over 11 days in October at the festival’s main venue, cinema Splendid Palace, as well as Forum Cinemas, cinema K.Suns, and the National Library of Latvia. Festival updates are published at rigaiff.lv and on RIGA IFF social media accounts.

RIGA IFF is made possible with the support of the State Culture Capital Foundation, the EU programme “Creative Europe – MEDIA”, Riga City Council, the Investment and Development Agency of Latvia, the National Film Centre of Latvia, and the Investment and Tourism Agency of Riga.