The epicenter of the Riga International Film Festival (RIGA IFF, 16–26 October) is the RIGA IFF Feature Film Competition, which this year will have 9 selected features from Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Ukraine, and Sweden competing for the festival’s main prize. Screenings at cinema Splendid Palace will welcome audiences to emotionally intense documentary and fiction films, exquisite examples of auteur cinema, and expressive human stories, representing different film movements, traditions, and screen languages.

“More than ever, the works selected for this year’s feature film competition are switched on to the current world events, even if set in the Middle Ages. The protagonists of these films care; they are confused in search of identity of the self and others, they look to understand the mystery of the creation of life and the afterlife. And the filmmaker lays their cards to predict the future of cinema. It will have a werewolf, a monk, and also a beauty and a fortress. It’s now up to us to connect the dots and find a translation of our own.”

thus RIGA IFF Feature Film Competition is introduced by the Artistic Director Sonora Broka. The festival’s main competition will see the world premieres of works of two Latvian auteurs. Jānis Ābele’s documentary detective The Last Will (Testaments), looking to fulfil the final wish of the poet Anatols Imermanis, will invite the viewers on a quest through the streets of the red-light districts of Western Europe. The musical outdoor play All Birds Sing Beautifully (Visi putni skaisti dzied) by Krista Burāne, captured on film, alongside poetic folk songs will emphasize the dramatic changes in the population of bird species in Latvia. The competition selection will also include the brothers Ābeles’ provocative animation Dog of God (Dieva suns), a stylistically audacious journey into Livonian history and witch trials, drawn in the rotoscope animation technique. The film that will open the 12th season of RIGA IFF on October 16 has just been nominated as Latvia’s candidate for the Academy Award in the Best International Feature Film category.

The programme section will also include the latest works from other creators of the Baltic Sea region. In collaboration between the filmmakers of Ukraine and Lithuania, the documentary by the veteran director Oleksiy Radynski, Special Operation (Spetsialna Operatsiia), continues to reveal the more brutal side of humanity by featuring CCTV footage from Chernobyl, which recorded the Russian Federation military forces’ invasion of the nuclear power plant area. The Lithuanian cinema landscape is represented by two tales of homecoming. Propelled by melancholic memories, The Visitor (Svečias), the feature film debut by Vytautas Katkus, which just received the Best Director award at the Karolvy Vary Film Festival’s main competition, reveals the highs and lows of Baltic reemigrants. Back to Family (Apsilankymas namuose), a film by the acclaimed director Šarūnas Bartas, which premiered at Rotterdam Big Screen Competition and is co-produced by the Latvian studio Mistrus Media, is a story of the return to the family home, and treads between the bleak reality of life in the country, never-ending past, and the vicious circle of generational doom.

Among the selected films are also bold highlights from the Nordic countries. Disarming with clever dialogues and dazzling performances, Solomamma (Solomamma), the film by the poster child of the renaissance of Norwegian cinema, Janicke Askevold, offers a nuanced portrait of the 21st-century family. Alongside filmmakers from Norway, Denmark, Lithuania, and Finland, the film was co-created by Mistrus Media, and the Latvian composer Kārlis Auzāns collaborated on the score. The competition also includes the debut film by the Danish director Emilie Thalund, Weightless (Vægtløs) – the Scandinavian response to Lady Bird (2017), focusing on struggles of teenage years, first romantic quests, and eating disorders, and the black and white film by the Swedish director John Skoog, Redoubt (Värn). In 35mm, it captures the apex of the fixation of its protagonist Karl, played by the legendary French actor Denis Lavant – the shelter made of thick mud, barbed wire, and concrete blocks. Before being screened at RIGA IFF, both films will have their world premieres at the prestigious San Sebastian Film Festival.

The selected competition films will be judged and the main festival award, a bronze statue and a EUR 5,000 monetary prize, bestowed by the jury of seasoned industry professionals. Among them will be the French curator and industry events programmer at Marrakesh, Cannes, Locarno, and other festivals, Thibaut Bracq (France), director Anna Hints (Estonia), the producer, founder of studio White Picture, Alise Ģelze (Latvia), renowned producer Gudny Hummelvoll (Norway) and Christian Jeune, Director of the Film Department at Cannes (France). The films of the Feature Film Competition will be screened throughout the festival run, and the winner will be announced during the RIGA IFF Closing Ceremony on 25 October. Tickets to the competition screenings are available on the festival website, rigaiff.lv or at Biļešu serviss sales points.

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 and announce their ticket sales. Films awarded at Rotterdam, Berlin, Cannes, Venice, and other film festivals, as well as bold hidden gems of contemporary cinema will unite both local audiences and international guests 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 on rigaiff.lv and 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.