Exactly ten years ago, at the end of August, the National Film Centre's portal filmas.lv created the first free collection of Latvian films online, arousing extraordinary interest in the public and earning the "Kilogram of Culture" award in the "Surprise of the Year" category. This year, filmas.lv celebrates its anniversary by organizing an online festival available worldwide, the program of which includes thematically selected Latvian films and film magazines about school, reminding us in the spirit of September 1 that the portal also has a separate section "Cinema in Schools", designed to assist the learning process.
Published: 27.08.2025.
Translated by machine translator
From August 27 to September 1 (inclusive), 14 films are available for free worldwide on the filmas.lv portal – four feature films, two full-length documentaries, two animated short films and six newsreels.
Latvian cinema classics are represented by director Leonids Leimanis’ (1910-1974) first feature film Nauris (1957), where a criminal intrigue is played out in a Jūrmalciems school and the main character, 10th grade student Nauris Upmāles, is played by ballet dancer Haralds Ritenbergs. Three other feature films show events in 21st century schools, and it is interesting that these works are also the directors’ debuts in the full-length feature film format. In 2014, director Andris Gauja made his debut with the story of the relationship between a teacher and a graduating class student, Graduation Year (2014), director Marta Elīna Martinsone created her first feature film, Tizlenes (2021), as a sparklingly comic memoir about 9th grade girls, while Marta Selecka and Andra Doršs play with the theme of superpowers in the feature film BUM! (2024).
The portal's anniversary selection of films about school also includes films by a Latvian documentary classic – Ivars Seleckis follows the early years of the lives of five Latvian children, filming them as first graders in the Centennial film, Continuation (2018) and as 8th grade students in the film Continuation. Growing Up (2024). The selection of attractive fantasy elements is supplemented by two puppet films from the Animation Brigade studio – the insect school story Skudrulauva (2004, directed by Dace Rīdūze) and the autumn adventures of the prankster Pēteris from the series Resgalības (1995, directed by Jānis Cimmermanis).
The documentary historical background for the school theme is provided by six newsreels (1936–1995), which cover different eras – the selection shows both politician Kārlis Ulmanis, who visits his first school in Bērzmuiža (1936), and later the legendary hockey player Helmuts Balderis, who takes his first steps on the ice at the age of four (1957), and the filming and sound recording of Gunārs Piešis' feature film Sprīdītis (1985); In this year of the School Youth Song Festival, two newsreels from different years allow us to compare the celebration's progress in different periods of Latvian history – both during the Soviet era (1979) and in the country that had just regained its independence (1995).
The National Film Centre (NFC) in cooperation with the Culture Information Systems Centre (CISC) began screening films for a limited audience on the filmas.lv portal in February 2009, when the first 70 films were posted on the portal, which could be viewed in 874 public libraries throughout Latvia; outside of libraries, the filmas.lv portal functioned as a film information database and catalogue. Technically, this project was implemented by CISC, the film selection was created by NKC by concluding contracts with producers, and at a press conference on February 17, 2009, this opportunity to legally watch films online was called a historic turning point in the Latvian film industry's relations with viewers.
Since the first days of operation, filmas.lv has been the most intensively visited cultural portal among all the websites maintained by CISC, thus requiring appropriate capacity from the technical maintainer, and public interest in the portal is constantly growing – in 2024, filmas.lv was visited by approximately 390,000 users, with various pages of the portal viewed almost 2 million times, and the films posted on the portal were viewed almost 200,000 times in 2024.
All these years, the technical support of the portal has been maintained by the Culture Information Systems Centre (CISC), and invaluable assistance in the operation of the portal has been provided by the State Cinematographic and Photographic Archives of the National Archives of Latvia, with which the NFC cooperates both in matters of film restoration and accessibility. The NFC is also grateful to Latvian film producers for their responsiveness and cooperation.
Information prepared by – Kristīne Matīsa, NFC film industry information specialist 26129954, kristine.matisa@nkc.gov.lv
Head of the portal filmas.lv – Zigita Saulīte, 29485939, zigita.saulite@nkc.gov.lv