Festival will look into films that deal with being alive

Films that focus on experience, sensitivity and curiosity, that ask questions like “what matters to us?” and “what drives our existence?”

The 11th Riga Pasaules film festival will take place from the 25th - 28th of April 2024 at Kino Bize. The programme will be linked together by the theme of "Life".

The festival team is interested in curating a programme with films that deal with being alive, a notion that focuses on experience, sensitivity and curiosity, rather than on categories embedded in cultural values and represented through language. Instead of reflecting on the question “who are we?”, we want to ask questions like “what matters to us?” and “what drives our existence?” We selected films for this year's edition that show a connection between filmmaking and living, where plot takes a secondary position to the cinematic presentation of life, film works that allude to the vitality of the everyday. These would be, for example, “slice of life” films or observational cinema. 

Stories about companionship between humans and other organisms that investigate how our lives coincide. How can cinema inform us about the ways plants and animals are alive? The programme will also investigate the relationship between humans and elements of the non-animated world commonly considered lifeless, such as technology, the mineral world, water, spiritual beings. In what way could they be alive? How can we tell, and who decides?

The festival will begin on April 25 at 18:00 with "Sundial" by Liis Nimik. Filmmaker continues the best traditions of Baltic poetic documentaries and has a sensitive eye for capturing a portrait of Estonian periphery countryside close to the Russian border. Liis Nimik will be present for a Q&A after the screening. 

Photo: Sundial, Liis Nimik

Published: 17.04.2024.