The RIGA IFF Short Film International Competition seeks to highlight new auteur films of various genres and techniques from all over the world. RIGA IFF is one of the 30 festivals that nominates one short film as a candidate for the European Film Awards. The curator and the selection committee evaluate submissions, look for individual works at other film festivals, film and art schools, and reach out to independent short filmmakers. There are as many films as there are opinions, and as many creators as there are stories.  The only things the selected films have in common is a maximum running time of 30 minutes and a distinctive voice. Audience members are guaranteed to find reasons to laugh, quarrel, or even shed a tear or two – often together with the filmmakers themselves!

Can poetry save us all? There is, of course, a long tradition of poetry in Latvian cinema, but this year’s national competition filmmakers invite us more than ever to look at the world sideways, through different colours or at a particular pace. In response to the uncertain chaos or deadly routine of our lives, poetic cinema is therefore highly recommended.  The Observer offers us the unique perspective of photographer Juris Kalnins in an overview of his rich career and reminds us that, thankfully, drones are not only used for military purposes these days. The protagonist of Cave Man watches the clouds outside, draws symbols and contemplates the unknown from his hideout like a baby about to be born or a prophet who may have glimpsed the future.  In Centre of the Spiral, long takes drag into a tunnel of visions and hallucinations: is the main protagonist experiencing enlightenment, ecstasy or damnation? For angels, see Big Loop, Small Loop and their magical creatures hunted down in an anonymous Baltic country in the 1970s – a perfect allegory for the repression of homosexuals and creativity during the communist period. Finally, escape modern life through modern rituals: reading the ingredients on cosmetics labels becomes a chant in Cleanliness, which adapts a poem by Kārlis Vērdiņš to colour the melancholy of connected days. And in Where Does the Sun Sleep at Night, it’s about finding meaning in windowless offices, this time through folk music – as if series Severance met Roy Andersson.