A Latvian tragicomedy about a young artist who bears witness to the dramatic political upheavals of the WWII era. As brutal regimes come and go, his country, his village, his people, and even his heart are swept up in the inexorable currents of history.
The marriage of Tana and Milan Labat is going through a crisis. They are constantly quarreling while their 16-year-old daughter goes missing at her birthday party. The couple redefine their marriage as they set off to find their child.
A razor sharp comedy all about relationships and red tape. Kreso is at a loose end. A fully qualified biologist, he's about to hit middle age, disillusioned, out of work and stuck in a marriage that should probably never have started. At least his son still looks up to him. Meanwhile, the country's cash-strapped government is busily looking for unique ways to save money, and now, over 20 years after the 1990's war, sets its sights on the widows of fallen soldiers. Anyone unmarried but in a new relationship will no longer be allowed a military pension. Enforcing such an unpopular measure requires a new department: The Ministry of Love, whose purpose will be to gather information on any widows breaking the new law. With nothing to lose, Kreso agrees to be put forward by his pushy father in law. The only problem is, together with his eccentric partner, Sikic, he's completely the wrong man for the job.
When his family moves to the city of Zlín and 16-year-old David joins a new hockey team, the Wolves, he is determined to succeed. There’s, however, the other goalie, Miky – and his position seems unshakeable. The team doesn’t welcome David with open arms either. Captain Jerry and his gang do as they please, while the team follows the ‘law of the pack’. David has been weakened by his recently discovered diabetes, and that is not tolerated here. He is still coming to terms with his body, learning to estimate the insulin doses his life depends on. On the team, David is the outsider, bracing the avalanche of bullying that gradually gains speed.
The 14th of June 1941, Soviet-occupied Latvia: Without warning, the authorities break into the house of Melanie and her husband Aleksandr and force them to leave everything behind. Together with more than 15 000 Latvians, Melanie and her son get deported to Siberia. In her fight against cold, famine and cruelty, she only gains new strength through the letters she writes to Aleksandr, full of hope for a free Latvia and a better tomorrow.
In the snowy Giant Mountains at the end of the German occupation, a group of child heroes rescue a downed French pilot. Their actions resemble the principle of the well-known 'telephone game' – the pilot is passed between mountain villages like a secret message – secret delivery – at school. But the children play a highly risky game. They are confronted by deadly soldiers of the occupying army, they must outwit traitors and informers and, last but not least, survive in the harsh conditions of winter in the mountains.
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.
ANNA ALEXANDROVNA BARKOVA (1901-1976) Journalist and poet, meeting suspicious characters. Involved in immoral love affairs. Work in the Kremlin, fired. 1934 - Arrested, 5 years of penal servitude in Karaganda. Lived in Ukraine during the WWII. 1946 - Arrested, 5 years of penal servitude in the Komi Republic. 1956 - Rehabilitated, disability pension. 1957 - Arrested, 10 years of penal servitude. The film 8 Heads of Madness is about the eternal struggle between the artist and external circumstances, the artist and her demons and longings. 8 Heads of Madness is a drama woven from fragments of an appalling era. An unhappy cross-section of the 20th century in an unhappy country, as seen through the sensitive, perceptive vision of a poet.
We encounter the controversial Croatian film director Lordan Zafranovic in voluntary exile in Prague. The film follows his rise from a talented outsider to the celebrated Yugoslav director of the acclaimed war film, 'An Occupation in 26 Pictures'. His life story is an unconventional depiction of a rise and fall that reveals compromises made in order to survive artistically during communism, as well as the missed opportunities and miscalculations that led to his inability to adapt in later years. Is the charismatic Zafranovic a national traitor or a victim of historical circumstances in which the only thing he wanted to do, in his own words, was to be himself and make films?
