Documentaries set in the Baltic States

A personal tale of political courage

It's 1992 and the first free elections held in Estonia since World War II have to the surprise of all brought to power young and idealistic political forces. They are led by 32-year-old Mart Laar, Europe's youngest prime minister, who is charged with crafting a country out of chaos. This is a story about gaining and losing trust, about the widening conflict between idealists and a rising economic elite, when a prime minister's good options grow fewer by the day. A story of idealists and friends becoming politicians and opponents.

An archive photo from 1940 forms the starting point for an exploratory journey along the border between Latvia and the USSR, or today between the European Union and Russia. Navigating from one side of this line to the other, two opposing visions of the world are revealed.

Investigating the history and modern face of Holocaust denial.

A story about growing up in the Soviet Union. The film tells the story of a strange kind of information war, where a totalitarian regime stands face to face with the heroes of popular culture. And loses. It was a time when it was possible for erotic film star Emmanuelle to bring down the Red Army and MacGyver to outdo an entire school administration. It is a film about our generation, who were unknowingly brought to the front line of the Cold War. Western popular culture had an incomparable role shaping Soviet children's world views in those days. Finnish television was a window to a world of dreams that the authorities could not block in any way. Though Finnish channels were banned, many households found some way to access the forbidden fruit.

A documentary about the outcome of a decision made by a brother and sister in 1945. One missed meeting, two families, and three generations.

As a young Soviet student in 1978, Ieva could not have predicted that a holiday visit to her father, Imants Lesinskis, then working in the Soviet mission at the United Nations in New York City, would irreversibly split her life in two. Entangled in a dark spy game, Ieva is forced to leave her former life behind, never to see her mother or her homeland of Latvia again. Pulling back the curtain on the shady behind-the-scenes world of the Cold War, this film tells a daughter's dramatic story of her double-agent father, exploring their relationship against the backdrop of events which have their roots over four decades ago. In order to find herself and understand the game she was part of, Ieva sets out on a journey to the past, confronting family secrets, lies and betrayal.

A documentary about the Lithuanian Gay League and the 2013 Lithuanian LGBT rights parade, which was the first open march for equality in this 20 years-old country.

A detective story about the reappearance of a millionaire lost in Latvia in the 1990s.

Filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim searches for his biological mother after discovering late in life that he was adopted.

Three elderly ladies - Maiga, Velta and Mrs.Tone - meet every Tuesday at a Culture House in a suburb of Riga to take part in rehearsals with 40-odd other ladies of the "Granny Choir". Some of them might be living more in the past than in the present, but there is one extraordinary feature common to all. Despite their age, low income and health issues, they appear to know how to grow old with dignity, a sense of humour and, as it seems, even joy.

These are the personal stories that were left in shadow of grief for Soviet crimes and euphoria for the fight for freedom. In these testimonies everything counts, not only words, but also silences. Can we recognize it as our common memory?

A film about five Latvian women who were all born the year 1960 and brought up under the Soviet Union regime. When the film starts the Soviet Union has fallen and Latvia is now an independent state. They describe their lives as divorced and single mothers in a time of social, political and economic crisis. It is a film about broken relationships and a society in shambles.

The portrayal of a city that refuses to die along with its defunct Soviet-era nuclear power plant. The mainly Russian speaking citizens there face identity issues in modern Lithuania. This portrayal inevitably raises questions of democracy, inclusion, citizenship, and freedom of expression.

A visually enchanting documentary that takes the audience on a thoughtful journey in Estonia's unique, vast and wondrous nature.

It tells the story of Major Karl Plagge, a Nazi officer who, during the Holocaust, was commandant of a forced labor camp called "HKP" in Vilnius, Lithuania. In reality, he was sheltering hundreds of Jewish families. By the end, many were saved in hiding places dug into the ground and carved into the walls. Many more were executed by the SS and buried in a mass grave. Today, the former "HKP" is unchanged. A group of scientists arrive to locate the hiding places of those that were saved and identify the mass grave of those who were murdered. A child survivor of the camp and an American physician, whose mother was saved by Major Plagge, join them. The film tracks their three stories and, ultimately, brings to light the unknown tale of a Schindler-type German who listened to his conscience, instead of his superiors.

From 1941 to 1944 tens of thousands of people, most of them Jewish, were shot in the killing pits in the Ponary Forest. The murders were documented in the diary of Kazimierz Sakowicz, a journalist from Vilnius who moved to the village of Ponary during the war.

Director Volker Koepp travels the Lithuanian shore on the border to the Russian enclave. Germans and Lithuanians have always lived here.

Documentary "Ruch and Norie" is a human interest story about two contrasting people striking up a surprising spiritual relationship. Japanese student Norie Tsuruta travels to Latvia to study Suiti community where she meets one of the oldest Suiti women nicknamed Ruch. That changes her life forever and the close bond between them doesn't break even after the return to Japan. Norie wishes she had two bodies to be in both places at the same time. She thinks she has found her deceased grandma in Ruch while Ruch worries about Norie being "far out there" and trembles at every earthquake in Japan. Ruch and Norie prove us all there are no borders to a genuine human relationship filled with laughter, caring and love.

The only thing we can be sure of in this world is that one day we shall die. In spite of that, we tend to live our lives as if it was never going to happen. Yet there are many among us who are deprived of the right to think that way. Victor (31) has a rare form of cancer in an advanced stage, and his wife is about to divorce him. Trapped in the antechamber of death and with his family falling to pieces, he knows that perhaps the most important decisions of his life must be taken here and now.

Biographical story about a 23 year old guy who is a heroin addict, and how it's ruining his life.

Inta is a brusque, crusty woman who lives alone on the edge of a picturesque marsh. One day her solitude is intruded upon by the arrival of a documentary filmmaker. In his eyes Inta is an outstanding would-be film protagonist but the wild woman would rather put a curse on the importunate intruder than let herself be filmed. But the filmmaker's persistence finally succeeds in melting the ice of Inta's heart... just in order to break it soon afterwards.

Filmmaker Jonas Mekas creates an elegiac diary of a trip to his home country of Lithuania.