At the Latvian National Film Awards ceremony the other day two awards were given to “Everything Will Be Alright” by Stanislav Tokalov. The film-to-be was pitched at the Baltic Sea Docs 2021 with the working title “Stranded” and described as “An attempt to look at the life of a half-million Baltic Russian community in 2020, through the stories of 3 generations of women in the director’s family.” It was awarded as the Best Long Documentary and having Best Editing (Stefan Stabenow).

I had an email conversation with the producer Guntis Trekteris in April 2023, when the film was finished, I saw the film twice and ended up with these words – not a review but comments, edited email version:

“It is a good film, actually a very good film, well composed and the protagonists are fine with grandma and mother as the ones you engage in. And Raul of course, poor guy… he disappears towards the end, maybe that could have been explained, did they divorce? Maybe he could have been a bit more in the foreground, maybe a foreign audience would like to know, why he ended up in Latvia – USSR. Anyway, there is a rhythm, there are the returning new year celebrations, Raul’s difficulty to get the table into the room where they are to eat, Irina visiting Nina again and again, the teeth that disappear, the May 9 celebrations etc. There is a lot of fine and warm scenes.

International festivals – I am sure you try but it is difficult I guess as no-one wants anything connected to Russia as things stand. Has that changed I ask now – beginning of 2024?

So this was a good experience – watching the film twice, as I have done in many cases when in doubt: I guess at the first screening, I was irritated of the mother’s constant crying and frustration, some times hysterical, but I think Stanislavs has done a fine job to make the audience understand why.” 

Greetings to you and the director

A woman’s face with running water in nature behind her. She looks at you or she does not look. Beautiful face, eyes seldom blinking. A river with waterfall and its sound. Focus on a rock and its cracks. A city emerges and disappears again. Cut to hands holding a postcard with…

… a voice that tells us that in 1998 “my mother” left our house and “we” never saw her again. Since then the daughter speaking, Virginia, the director of the film, has collected photos from the family album, prints of Roma, archive material, postcards with monuments, architectural and historical from the city; That if you read it from the back, Amor says Roma – always characterized as the city of Love. What comes to your mind, when you meet the word Roma, the voice the director asks and shows people in slow motion crossing a street.

Images show a diver getting ready to go down, we understand that the mother drowned in the Tiber. Virginia: I felt like a tree without roots. Two younger women are underwater – there are fragments of photos and other “things” on the bottom of the river, that evoke memories and there are super8mm footage that show Teresa in situations with friends and family in the countryside. This is a long poetic sequence with color – 8mm footage of people looking up to the sky, ending underwater again, and with the viewer being given the information that mother was born in 1943.

The film HAS found a complicated multi layered way of storytelling, which created a bit of confusion in my head at the beginning but once you get the point – I think I got – you are seduced by the flow (sorry!), of love to the photos of places and architecture that I remember, when I visited Amor… and take the tour on the back seat of the car that the director, Virginia, drives looking for the place in the river where Teresa, her mother, left. Very strong and intense, especially when it becomes a dialogue between daughter and mother, accompanied by the many photos of the mother, born 1943, dead 1998.

The text that helps the flow is excellent, and even more so is the music, composed by Lithuanian Martynas Bialobżeskis, magnificent!

I understand that this is a debut film… Bravo!

Italy & Lithuania, 2023, 101 mins.

Co-directed by Krista Burāne.

Italy and Latvia unite in this documentary shot in both countries, i.e. a co-production, a true one, where Italy provides the dancing, Latvia the music. A super-skilled editor is needed to connect and Ilaria de Laurentiis has done a great job to avoid “show-stoppers” to give the film a flow, from tango performed in Piemonte to music composed in Latvia. From Claudio and Ivana, to Arturs. And back again. Merging the scenes.

Claudio suffers from the Parkinson disease and performs tango as a therapy with his skilled wife. They organize therapy lessons in Cuneo, in a hall or at their place, where citizens with mobility problems come to dance. Many times to music composed by Arturs (Maskats), a well known and awarded Latvian composer, famous for his tango compositions. He has been inspired by the Italian couple, has visited them, they stay in contact through writing and in the film he goes down to get the inspiration to make a special piece for them. By cutting from the South to the North, with brilliant cinematography, the film describes the process of making the music to the tango – close-ups of the moving feet AND close-up of the two, Claudio and Ivana, showing their love to each other, beautiful it is to watch also of course, as we know, that Claudio, diagnosed 18 years ago, is living a life on borrowed time. One day he will be in a wheel chair.

Carried by the couple’s love to each other, their commitment to the dance – OMG, Ivana has sooo many tango shoes – showing that it is good for the body, and the engagement of Arturs to put down notes for his music, and of course the music itself, as it can be heard and seen in the Buenos Aires that Ivana longs to visit – it is a warm, well made documentary that deserves a good distribution internationally.

Ivana’s red tango dress is ready for the journey to Argentina but is Claudio with his health ready?

Italy/Latvia, 2024, 75 mins.

Historic Grand Slam for Norwegian cinema at Sundance: Awards for “A New Kind of Wilderness,” “Ibelin,” and “Handling the Undead.”The documentary film “A New Kind of Wilderness ” won the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary, while “Ibelin” received The Directing Award and The Audience Award in the same section. The feature film “Handling the Undead” won Special Jury Award for Original Music in The World Cinema Dramatic Competition. This makes this year’s awards ceremony the best ever for Norwegian cinema at a major festival. The awards were presented in Park City, Utah, in a ceremony on Friday, with the Norwegian winners present in the auditorium.  “It’s completely wild, we are so grateful and proud! That a close and personal film receives this recognition means everything,” says ” A New Kind of Wilderness ” director Silje Evensmo Jacobsen.   “This was absolutely fantastic! We would like to dedicate this award to Mats ‘Ibelin’ Steen. It will stand together with his picture at his parents Robert and Trude’s home. We hope the film will reach as many people as possible, and create discussions and inspiration all over the world. Such an award helps the future life of the film and increases the likelihood that it will be seen by more people. We are incredibly grateful and happy for this,” says Benjamin Ree, director of “Ibelin.”  Golden Age for Norwegian Documentary Film  “We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: Norwegian documentary film is in a golden age. The quality is world-class, and the fact that both “A New Kind of Wilderness ” and “Ibelin” won awards at Sundance is testament to this. Not only have they been carefully selected to the festival – they also took home three awards to Norway! We are incredibly proud of the teams behind the films and the directors Benjamin Ree and Silje Evensmo Jakobsen, and to composer Peter Raeburn for his work with the music for “Handling the Undead,” says Kjersti Mo, director of the Norwegian Film Institute.  A New Kind of Wilderness  The documentary film “A New Kind of Wilderness” by director Silje Evensmo Jacobsen takes place on a small farm surrounded by spruce forest where a family that has made an unconventional choice lives – Maria and Nik and their four children grow their own food, practice homeschooling, and co-sleep. They want to spend their time being together, living close to nature, becoming self-sufficient, and free. Maria, the mother of the family, is a photographer and documents the life project through words and pictures on the website wildandfree. But then tragedy strikes them, and the world they know is turned upside down. Reluctantly, the family must change their lifestyle and become part of modern society again.  ” A New Kind of Wilderness ” has received 1.7 million NOK in development and production grants from the Norwegian Film Institute.  About the Double Winner “Ibelin” “Ibelin” is about the gamer Mats Steen who died of a muscle disease at the age of 25. His parents mourned what they thought had been a lonely and isolated life, when they suddenly began to receive messages from Mats’ online friends from all over the world. The film recreates the rich life of Mats’ avatar “Ibelin” in the gaming world. Everything is based on real events and dialogues, taken from role-playing in World of Warcraft.   The documentary is directed by Benjamin Ree, whose previous film “The Painter and the Thief” in 2020 was the first Norwegian-registered documentary film in the main competition at Sundance. There, Ree won the Special Jury Award for Creative Storytelling. For the 2024 festival, Ree’s new film “Ibelin” was invited to be shown at the traditional cinema The Egyptian on the opening day and has now won two awards.  The film is produced by Ingvil Giske for Medieoperatørene and will have its Norwegian premiere in March 2024. It has received 4.2 million NOK in development and production grants from the Norwegian Film Institute… Excerpt from press release of Norwegian Film Institute.