Viesturs Kairišs
2021Piemineklis
Viesturs Kairišs
Viesturs Kairišs’ 2004 documentary The Monument investigates the interpretation of Riga’s Soviet Second World War memorial in the post-Soviet era. The "Victory Monument" was established by the Soviets to celebrate freeing Latvia from Nazi Germany. However, for Latvians, this didn't mean "freedom", it meant the beginning of another occupation of their country - this time, by Soviet Union. Included in the collection "Europe's old new faces : Ten countries, ten young directors. Ten stories about monuments situated somewhere between yesterday and tomorrow".
The Monument
Loengrīns no Varka Kru
Viesturs Kairišs
A creative a portrait of Latvian luger and Olympic medal winner, Martins Rubenis, who won the first Latvia's Winter Olympic medal of the games in Turin in 2006. Apart from his success in sports, in the circles of contemporary alternative culture he is known as DJ Betons from the association Varka Kru (Varka – from Russian "boiling", Kru – from English "crew"). Like the medieval knight Lohengrin, Martins Rubenis arrives in his luge to fight a battle - with an adversary, with himself, with time and the world.
Lohengrin from Varka Kru
Neredzamā pilsēta
Viesturs Kairišs
A story about a city built as a paradise but turned into hell – a city slowly turning into paradise again, just in a different way. Igor has been living in the Chernobyl Zone for almost ten years, for peace and a chance to escape modern civilization. Psychological issues, both personal and global, are still troubling him, and he embodies both harmonizing peace and supernatural stress. And an existential secret – the secret of the essence of life. He is surrounded by the elderly inhabitants of Chernobyl, living in villages entirely overcome by nature. They lead their unrealistic Atlantean lives, from which even war in Ukraine seems to be happening on another planet.
The Invisible City
The Chronicles of Melanie
Viesturs Kairišs
Sabine Timoteo, Ivars Krasts
The 14th of June 1941, Soviet-occupied Latvia: Without warning, the authorities break into the house of Melanie and her husband Aleksandr and force them to leave everything behind. Together with more than 15 000 Latvians, Melanie and her son get deported to Siberia. In her fight against cold, famine and cruelty, she only gains new strength through the letters she writes to Aleksandr, full of hope for a free Latvia and a better tomorrow.
The Chronicles of Melanie
Pelikāns tuksnesī
Viesturs Kairišs
Latgale is a land on the very eastern edge of the European Union. Sometimes it seems like a land in the middle of a body of water. At other times, it seems a desert with the ark of rescued humanity all covered by sand. The film presents a land that is made by people, spiritual and physical extremes of living and thoroughly Christian resurrection.
Pelican in the Desert
The Sign Painter
Viesturs Kairišs
Dāvis Suharevskis, Agnese Cīrule
A Latvian tragicomedy about a young artist who bears witness to the dramatic political upheavals of the WWII era. As brutal regimes come and go, his country, his village, his people, and even his heart are swept up in the inexorable currents of history.
The Sign Painter
Romeo un Džuljeta
Viesturs Kairišs
An emotional and stylistically consistent documentary musical depicting the staging of Bernstein’s West Side Story with deaf youths. The dramatic material is intertwined with life and the emotional scenes of the musical; it creates a distinctive choreography, which is a statement of the deaf people’s craving to love this world and to be open. Reciting to music, which is the way of singing of the deaf, is the strongest and most unexpected witness of the realities of their world.
Romeo and Juliet
Burvju flauta
Viesturs Kairišs
“As death, when we come to consider it closely, is the true goal of our existence, I have formed during the last few years such close relationships with this best and truest friend of mankind that death's image is not only no longer terrifying to me, but is indeed very soothing and consoling” - thus said Mozart about death. Mozart died in 1791 and was buried in a mass grave, as standard at the time in Vienna for a person of his social and financial situation. In 2000, 452 of Riga’s deceased — people without relatives, the homeless and the unidentified — were buried at the Jaunciems cemetery. But this film is not about death: it's about Mozart, The Magic Flute, Riga, and love. A short commissioned for the Latvian exhibition at Venice Biennale.
Magic Flute
Tumšie brieži
Viesturs Kairišs
Kristīne Krūze, Maija Doveika
17-year-old Ria is a sensitive and mysterious young woman. Ria's mother has suffered in a car accident and has stopped speaking since her daughter's birth. The family grows deer for sale, yet, the business is not successful. To earn some money, her father decides to organize a hunt.
The Dark Deer
Viesturs Kairišs iznāk no meža
Marta Elīna Martinsone
Marija Linarte, Ģirts Krūmiņš
A tragicomic tale about the relationship of Guna and the twice older writer Gints. Guna has lost her job, but Gints hasn’t written anything in years. Whilst running away from an unsatisfactory relationship and the lack of creative self-expression, Guna gets obsessed with the theatre performance “Odyssey” by the famous director Viestur Kairish and begins to mix reality with theatre. Guna tries to start a new life, but her fantasy world doesn’t allow her to be a part of reality anymore.
Viestur Kairish Comes Out Of The Woods
