Baltic Sea Docs Riga 2024/ 2
One afternoon – a tradition – I left the pitching venue at the Baltic Sea Docs to have a couple of hours with Davis Simanis Jr, documentary and fiction director, and now also rector of Latvian Academy of Culture. We went to “Little Moscow” as he told me the area around all the magnificent art deco buildings, including those with Eisenstein’s father as the architect, is now called as many Russians have left their country after the full scale war in Ukraine that began in February 2022; to take up and renovate apartments and shops; also the wine shop where we settled for a bottle and some bruschettas.
Anyway, the conversation was about films. The situation in documentary film in Latvia made Davis a bit worried, when it comes to the classical observation of Life as it performs in front of us. Ivars Seleckis, Davis said, is the last one of a great generation – Uldis Brauns, Herz Frank, Freimanis… – the director and cinematographer of so many important works, who turns 90 on the 22nd of September with a premiere of “To be Continued.Teenhood”, a sequel to “To Be Continued” from 2015, co-directed by Armands Zacs, who has been editor of a lot of awarded Latvian films, in both genres. The generation of filmmakers whose ability to catch moments of Life was unique. My own favourite among these documentarians as always been Uldis Brauns, honoured in the film “Bridges of Time” by Kristine Briede and Audrius Stonys. Davis and I talked about Brauns and Herz Frank, the latter I met a couple of times in Tel Aviv, where he lived his last years. Brauns I only met once, when Uldis Cekulis and Kristine Briede brought me along for a research trip for “Bridges of Time”. Brauns and Frank, the poet and the intellectual. Frank answered me once, when I asked him about his principal inspiration: Uldis Brauns. Davis had met him once and he was proud that Brauns liked his “Chronicles of the Last Temple” (2012) about Love and Life with the new National Library, fantastic architecture, as the starting point. “But I am probably more in the line of Herz Frank”, Davis said. For sure, I said, you think a lot… maybe too much?
For this post I have chosen a photo with a grafitti “Life is a Present” that I saw on the wall next to the Kino Bize, also in “Little Moscow”; I could also have chosen to quote Lithuanian born Jonas Mekas (1922-2019): … I am only a filmer. I film real life. I never know what will come next. The shape of my films emerges from the accumulation of the material itself. I go through my life with my Bolex camera.” And on another occasion he has said, “when I film I celebrate Life”.
A flashback to the Baltic Sea Docs, where so many fine, also observational, projects were presented, I am thinking about a couple of the presented films-to-be. First of all “Odyssey MD” by Moldovan Pavel Braila, an homage to his country through sequences full of fun and love. I do hope that this film will come to festivals to be appreciated for its “documentary eye”. Braila mentioned Uldis Brauns and his “235.000.000” as an inspiration.
The same goes for “Serozhik” by Armenian Lusine Papoyan, a film where she over all four seasons intends to follow a village boy (the title). The trailer shown was pure Cinema, great shots from nature reminding me and a couple of other film buffs in the pitching panel of Artavadz Pelechian and his amazing films – one of them called “Seasons”…
Davis Simanis Jr. and I also talked about football and love and life and children…
