As the Riga International Film Festival (RIGA IFF) gains recognition and visibility outside Latvia, three representatives of the festival – Creative Director Sonora Broka, Curator Dārta Ceriņa and RIGA IFF Showcase Manager Kristīne Simsone – have become members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA). For three Latvian film critics and journalists to join the prestigious organisation that selects the winners of the Golden Globe Awards is a unique occurrence in the history of Latvian cinema. Ceriņa, who is a film critic, curator, and researcher, became the first Latvian member of the HFPA when she was invited to join last year.

In its ongoing efforts to broaden its pool of voting members, which began in 2022, the HFPA, in collaboration with the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI), has welcomed 128 new members this year. A total of 310 critics and journalists from 76 countries will collectively determine the winners across 14 film and 13 television categories at the Golden Globe Awards. In recent years, the HFPA has been subject to a series of scandals and faced criticism for its elitism, insularity, and the homogeneous cultural, national, and ethnic backgrounds of its members. This is why the Association’s leadership is actively recruiting new professional film journalists who are recognised and respected in their countries.

The Golden Globe Awards were founded in 1943 by the HFPA, whose first president was Henry Gris (1904-1996), a Latvian-born journalist who worked for United Press International in London. From the late 1940s to the 1960s, he worked in the USA as a film journalist and interviewed almost every Hollywood star of the time. The Golden Globe Awards are considered a precursor to the Academy Awards and the second most prestigious film award in the USA film industry, identifying the favourites and trends of the awards season. The 81st Golden Globe Awards ceremony is scheduled to take place on 7 January 2024 in Los Angeles, USA.

For the past six years, Sonora Broka has produced and hosted the radio show “Piejūras klimats” on Latvian Radio 3, introducing Latvian listeners to the most current events, developments, and personalities in Latvian, European, and world cinema. She also contributes to the online film publication Kino Raksti. Broka has gained her curatorial experience through her work at the film forum Arsenāls, the international children’s film festival Berimors, Nordic Film Days, and RIGA IFF, as well as serving on the selection committee for the LUX Film Prize awarded by the European Parliament. Since 2017, Broka has been a member of the Latvian section of FIPRESCI, and a member of the European Film Academy since 2019.

Kristīne Simsone graduated with a degree in film studies in France and joined RIGA IFF in 2014. At the festival, she has been working on advancing film literacy and has created several programmes for children and young people including the RIGA IFF Film Club, a film education project for students and teachers. Since 2023, she has been the director of RIGA IFF Showcase, the festival’s co-production platform. Simsone regularly contributes film reviews to the weekly magazine Ir and also writes for Kino Raksti. Since 2023, she has contributed weekly features on film news for the Latvian Radio 1 programme “Labrīt” and writes about the Latvian film industry for the European publication Film New Europe. She has been a member of the Latvian section of FIPRESCI since 2017.

Dārta Ceriņa is a film and theatre researcher, journalist, and critic, developing interdisciplinary approaches and putting them into practice. She has been a lecturer at the Latvian Academy of Culture (LAC) since 2020, and a research assistant at the LAC Institute of Arts and Cultural Studies since 2017. She has worked at the Baltic Sea Docs Forum and has been a curator at RIGA IFF since 2021 as well as being the editor and writer for the festival’s digital catalogue. She writes reviews for the weekly magazine SestDiena, is a film critic for the platform Tet, regularly provides reviews for the show “Kultūras rondo” on Latvian Radio 1, and is one of the teachers of the Duanel Film School at the cinema Kino Bize. She has been a member of the Latvian section of FIPRESCI since 2018, and from this year is a Member of the Board of FIPRESCI.

The new members of the HFPA will start their work in autumn this year, and Broka, Ceriņa and Simsone will simultaneously be working on the tenth anniversary programme of RIGA IFF. The festival will take place from 12–22 October this year. Its four competition sections aim to highlight bold and innovative films for keen and inquisitive minds from around the world, while other sections feature the most current, innovative, and vivid forms of cinematic expression and visionary filmmakers.