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