First tickets to this year’s Riga International Film Festival (RIGA IFF) screenings go on sale on 20 July, with a retrospective dedicated to the creative output of the American independent filmmaker and musician Jim Jarmusch now available for purchase. It honours the director’s 70th birthday, as well as the tenth edition of RIGA IFF, to be widely celebrated between 12 and 22 October in cinemas in Riga and online across the country. Fans of Jarmusch may appreciate the RIGA IFF 4-ticket pack, allowing to see the curated selection of his work for less.

It can be claimed that American independent film was introduced to a broader audience by David Lynch, nurtured by Jim Jarmusch, and celebrated by Quentin Tarantino. The IN KINO VERITAS programme at this year’s RIGA IFF is dedicated to Jarmusch, with four screenings in October covering the most significant touch points of his filmography to introduce this classic outsider’s style and character, honed over 40 years of deliberately going against the mainstream. The traces left by his characters are firmly impressed upon the history of pop culture and film history, while his film reality is ever fresh, meditative and quoteful – where, as the director himself has said, everything is borrowed.

The films included in the RIGA IFF retrospective encompass several decades of Jarmusch’s filmmaking. One of the films to hit the big screen is the canonical road movie Stranger Than Paradise (1984), starring the musician, painter and actor John Lurie and also featuring drummer-turned-actor Richard Edson, an original member of the cult band Sonic Youth. This piece, his second feature, brought the director international acclaim, and locally it has recently resurfaced as one of the motifs in Latvian director Viesturs Kairišs’ award-winning feature January (2022). Viewers can also enjoy the auteur’s take on the iconography of the Wild West, the identity of artist William Blake and the history of America in Dead Man (1995), starring Johnny Depp and set to the soundscape of Neil Young’s stunning score. Jarmusch himself calls this monochrome scenic piece a psychedelic western and “an answer to the history of the genre”.

IN KINO VERITAS also includes one of his most internationally known films – a gangster musical triumph, Ghost Dog: The Way of Samurai (1999) with original score by RZA and featuring tracks by Wu-Tang Clan, Public Enemy and other hip hop masterminds. The film follows a lonely hitman (played by Forest Whitaker) and his relationship to the mafia, samurai code of conduct, pigeons and people. To round off the retrospective, the screen will be engulfed in a swirl of conversations, sips of coffee and cigarette smoke in the black-and-white conversation anthology Coffee and Cigarettes (2003), where Jarmusch’s friends and fellows Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett, Iggy Pop, RZA, Roberto Benigni and many others meet up for a humorous chat on the meaningless and the meaningful.

The most cost-efficient way to experience the Jarmusch retrospective screenings is the 4-ticket pack, available online at rigaiff.lv and at Biļešu serviss sales points. Single tickets to screenings are also available.

RIGA IFF has already announced the first films – contemporary gems and auteur finds from Sundance, Rotterdam, Berlinale, Cannes and other festivals. Follow the festival on social media and check rigaiff.lv to find out about the rest of the anniversary programme, special events and other news!

The main partner of RIGA IFF is media and technology company Tet. The festival receives support from the State Culture Capital Foundation, Creative Europe MEDIA, the National Film Centre, and the Riga City Council.