Due to the current situation in regards to COVID-19 Riga Film museum will be closed from December 19, 2020 until further notice.
Take care of yourselves and your families till then, and we hope to see you soon! Until it’s safe again to meet in person you are more than welcome to follow us on our social media: we are active on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube!
Considering the epidemiological situation in the country, we invite visitors to use face masks during the museum visit!
The first conference was held in 2014 in Tallinn (Estonia) by Estonian Film Museum, Film Archive of the National Archives of Estonia and Tallinn University Baltic Film and Media School. Later, other organizations joined Estonian Film Institute, Baltic Audiovisual Archival Council (BAAC) and Tallinn University Centre of Excellence in Media Innovation and Digital Culture (MEDIT).
From 2019, the conference became mobile, and Vilnius (Lithuania) was the first host of this moving conference. The conference was organized by Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, Media Education and Research Center NGO „Meno avilys“, together with the partners: Vilnius Documentary Film Festival, Film Archive of the National Archives of Estonia, Latvian Academy of Culture and strategic partner Lithuanian Council for Culture.
The conference will be livestreamed here: https://www.youtube.com/user/LKAkademija
A unique opportunity to watch the oldest surviving fiction film that was shot in the territory of Latvia – “Where’s the Truth? The Tragedy of a Jewish School Girl” at the opening event of Riga International Film Festival on October 15! The event will be the premiere of the restored version of this film, and it will be available for free viewing worldwide. This film was restored at the initiative of Riga Film museum.
In the snowy streets of Riga at the beginning of the last century, horses pull carriages, a student couple in love meet at the Cathedral of the Nativity, a tram slides along Alexander Boulevard, and bare trees sway in the windy alleys. So as not to freeze, men crossing the Opera Bridge have shoved their hands in their pockets, while the women have fur muffs… The story, however, takes place in an unnamed place outside of the Pale of Settlement*.
Having come from Bessarabia province, Adele Weisekind is listening in to university lectures because the Jewish student quota is full. Soon an alarming message arrives – as she has no right to live here, the police inform her that she must leave the city within three days. In an effort to stay, Adele registers as a prostitute. While her beloved, Rafail Edelgerts, goes to see his frail father, Adele is arrested on suspicion of robbing a drunken gentleman. In prison, her dire situation brings on a nervous fever in which she relives her happy childhood and the death of her parents in an anti-Jewish pogrom…
This is the oldest surviving feature film shot in the territory of Latvia. The end of this tragic love story, in which the forlorn Rafail himself dies on a cold night at Adele’s grave, has been lost. The script is based on the play At Sea and Ellis Island by Abraham Shaikewitz Schomer, a lawyer, writer and architect of the idea for a World Jewish Congress; the play has been repeatedly cinematized and performed in theatres.
*A territory within the borders of czarist Russia wherein the residence of Jews was legally authorized and beyond which a few were allowed to live – those with university education or baptized, registered prostitutes, members of the most affluent of the merchant guilds and some military personnel.
The silent film “Where is the Truth?! The Tragedy of a Jewish School Girl” that was shot in Riga and Ventspils reached audiences in 1913, thanks to Siegfried Mintus – a producer, owner of film theatres and distributor of motion pictures and cinema equipment. In 2020, the film was restored by the studio Locomotive Classics at the initiative of the Riga Film Museum, and with the support of the State Culture Capital Foundation.
The museum is open as usual. The only change is the public health safety regulations:
– We can accomodate maximum of 25 people. When planning your visit, please give us a call (67 358 873) or send us an e-mail: kinomuzejs@kinomuzejs.lv
– If you are feeling unwell and have any kind of respirotary disease please postpone your visit to Riga Film museum until you’re feeling better!
– We are currently receiving individual visitors or people from one household only. No group visits are allowed yet
– Please follow the directions in the museum and keep 2 m distance!
– Museum is cash only.
We are looking forward to seeing you here!
Due to the state of general emergancy because of the virus COVID-19 Riga Film museum will be closed until at least May 12. Let’s keep in touch virtually!
All the upcoming events including film screenings and special events are postponed. However, we continue working so if you have any questions about Latvian film history and our collection, feel free to drop us a line, we’ll be happy to help!
“My Wealthy Mistress” (1969, directed by Leonīds Leimanis) is one of the few Riga Film Studio films based on the works of writer Andrejs Upītis. The film takes place in Riga during the 1920s-30s, the first period of independence of the Republic of Latvia. The plot follows Oļģerts Kurmis, played by Eduards Pāvuls – the character who in the history of Latvian cinema embodies the well-educated but unemployed stereotype. His daily rounds in search of work brings Kurmis face to face with the full range of economic and social inequalities of Riga, as he crosses paths with his buddy Frīdis (Kārlis Sebris), also unemployed, and Emma Kārkls (Līga Liepiņa) – a young woman just released from jail, who needs to find a job or risk being arrested for loitering. Meanwhile, the city prepares for election, the charged political race becoming the perfect background for the human drama exacerbated by inequality.
In this exhibition we are focusing on the longing captured on the celluloid. Emma Kārkls yearns for something more – love and beauty that are elusive and distant concepts for an impoverished girl with a criminal past. Riga in this film is a different version of today’s city – mythical place conjured with cinematic means. Desire for another reality is a characteristic trait of cinema, and “My Wealthy Mistress” takes us to a different time and space, revealing previously overlooked facets of reality and manifesting our collective yearning for a world consisting of something more than daily toil.
In Latvian film history Aloizs Brenčs is known as expert of two genres: he made both highly successful, suspenseful, on-the-edge-of-your-seat detective films and heart-wrenching melodramas. Brenčs moved to fiction films after several years’ work in documentary field, and his films were often exceptional for their documentary precision.
The focus of this exhibition is on the detective films, and it is in this genre where Brenčs is at his most momentous self, exploring the concepts of good and evil, the societal structures and beliefs. His detective films always test the acuity of their viewers. Their geographical range is sweeping, too. This exhibition is dedicated to bars and nightclubs which in Brenčs’ films are indispensable to the plot: they’re one of the main locations in any city. Although Rīga remains his beloved city, time and again Brenčs brings his characters and viewers as far as Georgia, Baku or East Berlin.
The exhibition will be on display until November 15, 2019