“Time Bridges” (LTV1 – April 18) is a story about Baltic poetic documentary cinema and the search for the human soul in the past and present, while “Kurt Fridrihsons” (LTV1 – April 21) tells about the ability to preserve oneself in art and not bend one’s back.
In the 1960s, thanks to the so-called “Khrushchev Thaw”, young documentary filmmakers in Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania challenged the propaganda film traditions of their time and turned the Chronicle into Art. “Time Bridges” is a story about Baltic poetic documentary cinema and the search for the human soul in art – from the fog of Lithuania through flooded meadows to Latvian fishing villages. From the death row in Riga Prison to stellar explorers in the Israeli desert. From solstice bonfires on the Estonian islands to 235,000,000 faces behind the Iron Curtain.
Time passes, but we are still only ten minutes older in the midst of life. How did the legendary directors of poetic cinema – Hertz Frank, Uldis Brauns, Henriks Šablevičius, Andress Sēts, Aivars Freimanis, Ivars Seleckis, Robertas Verba and Marks Sosārs know how to make their feet between heaven and earth with their films? What did they think? How did the old masters manage to put people at the center of their films in search of answers to questions that were important to human history, not to the Soviets? The film is a co-production of the Baltic States, it was produced in the studio “VFS Films”. Directors – Kristīne Briede and Audrius Stonis. Producer – Uldis Cekulis.
The documentary “Kurt Fridrihsons” is a personal story of the writer Gundega Repše about artists, spiritual teachers, outsiders, prisoners and nonconformists in the twists and turns of Latvian history.
