SHORT RIGA
As an individual department within this year’s festival the team behind the wittily titled SHORT RIGA have devised a remarkable feat – altogether three competitions of new shorts from around the world, Baltic student films and a separate category for music videos. Showcased within three respective programmes SHORT RIGA will take over the newly established small theater KINO BIZE as well as organise workshops and host an award ceremony.
GREEN PROGRAMME
International Competition
Green is the colour whose shades are easiest to distinguish for humans as it is the most natural colour for human eye to perceive. Everyone who has reached their twenties will find the films in this programme relatable to their experience. Whether it is watching your parents grow old or having your first sexual experience, filmmakers from around the globe will always try to find new ways of talking about childhood and adolescence.
SCREENINGS
RED PROGRAMME
International Competition
Red is the color of the forbidden. Through the human history desire has been one of the most unwanted expressions – and one of the most natural drives of human beings. The films in this programme reflect on the various effects this self-censorship creates in our society and its individuals.
BLACK PROGRAMME
International Competition
Black is the colour that does not exist. It is nothingness, the unknown, that triggers fear and humility in us as a response to it. The films in this programme place us in the presence of the primal forces of nature, let us experience the fear of losing our loved ones, the fear of losing ourselves and the inevitable struggle of overcoming these fears.
BLUE PROGRAMME
International Competition
Blue is the colour associated with the flow of time. For us, time is an ever changing one-way ride that makes us continuously adapt to new circumstances. This process brings sadness in our lives, but there is also hope.
SCREENINGS
WHITE PROGRAMME
International Competition
White is not really a colour but rather a combination of every visible colour that exists. Only with the introduction of our perceptual boundaries can the process of distinguishing one colour from another begin. The films in this program place you in the outskirts of socially constructed boundaries of sanity.
TWO BOYS ONE GIRL
Baltic Student Competiton
It seems like a two boys one girl triangle is one of the key themes used by the young film directors in the past two years. Truly, the combination creates endless opportunities for a story to evolve. Two Boys one Girl program features the three films in competition - two from Lithuania and one from Latvia. Each film has both dramatic and youthful elements to it.
SCREENINGS
SOLITUDE
Baltic Student Competiton
Loneliness as a social form is the key theme of the program. Creating their protagonists as social individuals directors must face a very complicated task - make them live in the heart of a viewer. This is a complicated task for young filmmakers and not everyone can achieve it. The Solitude program features three films in competition, drawing a viewer right to the center of each story.
SCREENINGS
COUNTRY EFFECT
Baltic Student Competiton
Making us travel in space and time is one of cinema’s most exquisite prerogatives, and on screen we are exposed to the most mysterious and obscure landscapes one can ever imagine. Landscape, however, is not only a background. It creates its own stories and places for film characters to inhabit. Many film directors gained international recognition capturing landscapes of their home countries, traditions and everyday life. This program features two short films, each revealing stereotypical features of the Baltic countryside.
SCREENINGS
BALTIC DREAMS
Baltic Music Video Competition
Music video is like a time capsule, preserving the hot, the stylish and the cool of the moment. Unfortunately, this also means that music videos age much faster than other forms of audiovisual works. In selecting the videos for this competition, we have paid extra effort to find music videos that also impress with their content, not only the visual style. By doing this, we hope to achieve that this selection of 15 music videos from the Baltic states will also be interesting a couple of years later.
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