A fragment of the Berlin Wall in the centre of Riga.
Social & External
This lost classic, shot on 16mm in a wintry Berlin in 1993, explores the origins of the German trance scene. Featuring interviews with fresh-faced selectors including Laurent Garnier and MFS Records founder Mark Reeder, the documentary also feature footage from the city's iconic Love Parades in 1991 and 1993.
A high-school folk dancing group heads to Latvian School Youth Song and Dance Festival, an event that takes place every five years and is part of the Latvian national identity – this is the culmination point of five years of work. Away from their homes and parents, they spend seven days and nights together. They are 18 and have just graduated, and this seems to be the last idle summer of their lives. Dreams mix with boredom, silly jokes with serious conversations. Taking care of one another creates affection and grows into a collective power. There are thousands like them at the festival. Every individual sensation turns into a common celebration that becomes more than just a tradition.
DocuDrama about 13th century pre-Christian culture. Danish spy Lars enters the tribal lands of the Baltic peoples, where he takes part in religious rites, cruel forays, gets high during the Summer Solstice, becomes slave to the Couronians and even fights the crusaders. Who were the last pagans of Europe and how did they live? It is a unique trip into the textures of the past and into the unknown lands of the Baltic Tribes.
Does Europe also have its own animistic heritage, like Pachamama in South America and Shinto in Japan? If so, which one? In the Misty Lands, i.e. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, a sacred fire is lit on the winter solstice to celebrate the return of the sun and ancient beliefs that have been forgotten in the rest of Europe for thousands of years. Sophie Planque and Jérémy Vaugeois decided to take a journey on bicycles to experience the Baltic winter and meet the people who keep their ancestral culture alive. A unique heritage that reinforces a deep relationship with nature.
Unustatud rahvad (1970 - 1989) by Estonian composer Veljo Tormas is based upon six Balto-Finnic peoples traditions. Collegium Musicale choir brought the songs to different sides of Baltic coasts to liven current citizens connections for fleeting past and strengthen their identity.
After the end of the Cold War, the Baltic was viewed almost as a quiet backwater. A nice place to visit to see charming Hanseatic cities and sandy beaches. But since the war in Ukraine the Baltic sea, bordered by eight European Union countries as well as Russia, has become a hot spot of world geopolitics. And tensions are high.
The War Diary is a contemporary road movie that confronts history with the current reality of Russia, Ukraine, Armenia and Georgia. An extraordinary document leads Hakob Melkonyan to undertake the journey of a lifetime:
In 1989, thirteen GDR scientists and technicians set off from East Berlin to the Georg Forster research station in the Antarctic. During their expedition the Berlin Wall fell on November 9th. Cut off from the images that go around the world, the men can only experience the historical events passively. When they returned in the spring of 1991, their homeland was a foreign country. The documentary reconstructs the thoughts and feelings of the East German researchers on the basis of eyewitness accounts, diary excerpts, letters, film material, grandiose landscape shots from the location of the action and unique photos to make the consequences of the events tens of thousands of kilometers away on the small GDR expedition in the middle of the eternal ice tangible.
Located on the shores of the Baltic Sea, between Poland and Lithuania, Kaliningrad is a piece of Russia in the heart of Europe. A curious territory, isolated from Moscow after the fall of the USSR, today transformed into a military fortress facing NATO. In Kaliningrad, headquarters of the Russian Baltic fleet, there are 30,000 soldiers, hypersonic missiles and nuclear capability.
Some of the most iconic images in Latvian visual history were taken 30 years ago, when the so-called Singing Revolution took place. This documentary that includes well-known and previously unseen 35 mm footage, is about those who took these shots, told in their own voices, their own emotions and memories.
Between 1930 and 1945, Eastern Europe experienced mass violence on an unprecedented scale. Hitler and Stalin exploited the vast region for their respective expansionist plans. It is estimated that around 14 million civilians were murdered—primarily Jews, Poles, Balts, Belarusians, and Ukrainians.
Tashkent: The End of an Era reconstructs the complex history of Tashkent by means of archive footage which has never been shown before and the testimonies of its inhabitants.
Special care has been taken by International Historic Films to assemble this monumental documentary, which tells the story of what is left for a people after its land has been ravaged by war. Situated between the powerful antagonists Germany and the Soviet Union, the Baltic nations of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia bore witness to some of the most ferocious land battles of the Second World War.
Set in Milan in the summer of 1989 against the backdrop of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the film follows four frustrated individuals whose lives intertwine because of the loss of a planner.
In Soviet-occupied Estonia, a boy is caught between a broken family, the suffocating grip of state power, and forces far older than the empire itself. As propaganda and betrayal close in, he discovers that the greatest danger emerges where political oppression and ancient myth converge - and that his own bloodline may hold the key to both survival and ruin.
The film tells the story of the events during the night of January 19 to 20, 1990, when the Soviet Army invaded Baku and its surroundings and killed many civilians.
In the chaos of post-Soviet Russia, rising KGB officer Vladimir Putin joins forces with master manipulator Vadim Baranov to reshape life behind the Iron Curtain, using violence and deception to change the world forever. Putin and Baranov’s reign of chaos begins with lies and corruption, and quickly escalates to assassinations, tyranny, and eventually all-out war.
On the verge of retirement, Commissioner Gintas must undertake the investigation of a series of heinous murders, a dangerous task that could expose the many dirty secrets of several prominent members of the social elite of a small Lithuanian town.
Throughout the Islamic world, each year hundreds of women are shot, stabbed, strangled or burned to death by male relatives because they are thought to have “dishonoured” their families. They may have lost their virginity, refused an arranged marriage or left an abusive husband. Even if a woman is raped or merely the victim of gossip, she must pay the price. Crimes of Honour documents the terrible reality of femicide – the belief that a girl’s body is the property of the family, and any suggestion of sexual impropriety must be cleansed with her blood. We meet women in hiding from their families, a brother who describes his reasons for killing the sister he loved, and a handful of women who have committed themselves to the protection of young women in danger of losing their lives.
A personal look at Black Republicans and the lack of a Two-Party Political System in Urban America.
During the Cold War, an American scientist appears to defect to East Germany as part of a cloak and dagger mission to find the formula for a resin solution—but the plan goes awry when his fiancee, unaware of his motivation, follows him across the border.
A detailing of the rise to prominence and global sporting superstardom of six supremely talented young Manchester United football players (David Beckham, Nicky Butt, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Phil and Gary Neville). The film covers the period 1992-1999, culminating in Manchester United's European Cup triumph.
In 1990s Belfast, a woman is forced to betray all she believes in for the sake of her son.
Al Pacino's deeply-felt rumination on Shakespeare's significance and relevance to the modern world through interviews and an in-depth analysis of "Richard III."
Vice detective Bob Hightower finds his ex-wife murdered and daughter kidnapped by a cult. Frustrated by the botched official investigations, he quits the force and infiltrates the cult to hunt down the leader with the help of the cult’s only female victim escapee, Case Hardin.
James Bond is sent to investigate after a fellow “00” agent is found dead with a priceless Indian Fabergé egg. Bond follows the mystery and uncovers a smuggling scandal and a Russian General who wants to provoke a new World War.
On his deathbed, the reigning king bestows power to an unexpected heir who must find strength within himself to unite his people against the violent crusades which threaten their freedom.
A young Indigenous game warden arrests an infamous poacher only to discover that the poacher knows the location of a plane carrying millions of dollars that has crashed in a frozen lake. When a group of criminals and dirty cops are alerted to the poacher’s whereabouts, the warden and the poacher team up to fight back and escape across the treacherous lake before the ice melts.
A British woman on a visit to post-war Berlin is caught up in an espionage ring smuggling secrets into and out of the Eastern Bloc.
Those who knew iconic funnyman John Candy best share his story, in their own words, through never-before-seen archival footage, imagery, and interviews.
The most comprehensive retrospective of the '80s action film genre ever made.
A member of British Intelligence assumes a fictitious criminal identity and allows himself to be caught, imprisoned, and freed in order to infiltrate a spy organization and expose a traitor; only, someone finds him out and exposes him to the gang...
An inside look at one of the most anticipated movie sequels ever with James Cameron and cast.
Colonel Stok, a Soviet intelligence officer responsible for security at the Berlin Wall, appears to want to defect but the evidence is contradictory. Stok wants the British to handle his defection and asks for one of their agents, Harry Palmer, to smuggle him out of East Germany.
The life of Mr. Spock, as well as that of Leonard Nimoy, the actor who played him for almost fifty years, written and directed by his son: Adam.
A retired detective accepts a simple task, unaware that it will tear open old, forgotten, but deadly wounds.
When a young soldier, newly returned from war, gets caught up in a drug bust, he is recruited by the authorities to go undercover in a notoriously dangerous prison in order to figure out what is really going on.
Former special forces operative Danny is forced back onto a remote island when a violent, secretive community takes revenge by abducting his daughter Alex, launching a relentless hunt against enemies prepared for his every move.
Federal agent Alexandra Barnes believes that Catherine Petersen is a serial killer who marries rich men and then murders them for their money. But since Catherine is seemingly a master of disguise and has multiple identities, Alexandra can't prove anything with conventional detective work. With no other option, she goes undercover, pursuing the same man as Catherine, and hoping that Catherine will slip up and reveal her true identity.
FBI agent Jack Crawford is out for revenge when his partner is killed and all clues point to the mysterious assassin Rogue. But when Rogue turns up years later to take care of some unfinished business, he triggers a violent clash of rival gangs. Will the truth come out before it's too late? And when the dust settles, who will remain standing?
