Janu Nakts (St. John's Night) is a traditional Latvian celebration during which family and friends gather to build bonfires, barbecue, drink and generally have a good time. According to legend, lovers and those who would like to fall in love, can search the woods for the "magic fern" on this night. This magic fern serves as the focus and pivotal point of the six stories in "Midsummer Madness" It is also a metaphor for the film's underlying theme - finding love. "MIDSUMMER MADNESS " is reflected in the recurring element of the magic fern, a metaphor (both in the film and in real life) for love. The question posed by the film is: can a search for love ever be successful? Each story deals with this question. An answer is provided at the film's conclusion in a humorous and unforgettable way: we see the legendary fern, glowing magically in a meadow. It exists after all! Then a cow ambles along and eats it. The deeper message, which is not obvious to the audience, is therefore: Yes, a search for love can be successful, though we are generally unaware of how to deal with it.
Cast: Maria de Medeiros, Dominique Pinon, Orlando Wells, Tobias Moretti, Chulpan Khamatova, Gundars Abolins, Aurelija Anuzīte, Janis Blums, Birgit Minichmayr
Directed by Alexander Hahn
Four Latvian legionnaires are sentenced to death for deserting the German army. A Latvian girl heads to the German headquarters to try to free her beloved. In the few hours remaining before the execution a love triangle plays out between the girl, a German officer and the prisoner.
On 16 February 1983, Divine performs a seven-song set at the Hacienda Club in Manchester. His peroxide blond hair sticks in all directions; he's dressed in a skin-tight, short, off-one-shoulder, sparkling dress that he says he got from the Queen, who wouldn't wear it. The set includes Gang Bang (the name-game song), Jungle Jezebel, Born To Be Cheap, Alphabet Rap, Native Love, Shake It Up, and, for an encore, Shoot Your Shot. The band, whom we never see, is techno-rock. Between songs, Divine chats up the audience, usually talking about sex.
The movie shows a young man's life dramatically changed after his friend is murdered. It is ironic - if to look with today's eyes - and nostalgia evoking portrait of marginal society and environment in the early 1990s with allusions to the western cinema - film noir related themes, surrealistic features, avantgard cinema stylization and formal aesthetics.