A feature shot as a documentary, with minimal interference in the surrounding action. The resulting film is a truthful and innocent portrayal of the era with no imitations or conscious borrowings but with its own avant-garde experiments.
A biopic of Rainis (born as Jānis Pliekšāns), a Latvian poet, playwright, translator, and politician, whose works had a profound influence on the literary Latvian language, and the ethnic symbolism he employed in his major works has been central to Latvian nationalism.
The action and emotions are focused on three main characters: the little boy nicknamed Vanadziņš, his playmate, the kitten, and Vanadziņš’s father, the fisherman. Monumentally laconic, with precise, emotionally effective details; tragedy without affectation and sentimentality, it is the aesthetically the most solid of Arnolds Burovs’s films.
This tale (about a rich man stealing poor man's magic mill or magic grinder) is the first stop-motion animation film by the Riga Motion Picture Studio, created by four professional puppeteers from the Latvian Puppet Theatre and directed by Arnolds Burovs. The film constituted a successful beginning for a stable and long-standing tradition and is evidence of the intuitive skills of the filmmaker required for stop-motion animation, namely, the ability to work with precision and economy of expression.
One of the iconic Latvian movies. Based on Astrid Lindgren's book 'Emil of Lönneberga'. A story of a little boy, Emil, who, according to others is incredibly naughty, but actually Emil is a lot more kind hearted than all the rest. And everything he does is to help someone. But somehow it all the time turns out like a prank. His family won't agree with any pranks on themselves, so there goes Emil in his father's tool shed, where he's locked up for every prank. Includes the phrase - 'the main idea is to keep your feet warm', which has been adapted in Latvian culture, so it's already a saying.