Established in 1997 in Denmark and running in a September slot for the last 16 years in Riga, Latvia, the Baltic Sea Forum for Documentaries (Baltic Sea Docs) is inviting more than 100 film professionals to Riga for its pitching and training sessions from 1-12 September. As has already been announced (see the news), the 25^th-anniversary edition will take place in a hybrid format, and the same goes for the documentaries selected to be screened.

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Zane Balčus, project manager of the forum, commented: “Even though this anniversary edition will be held in hybrid form with just a few on-site participants, we will make every effort to have as productive an event as possible, and we do hope that next year, we will be able to welcome everyone to Riga again.”

The highly topical documentary Courage [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Aliaksei Paluyan e Jörn Mö…
scheda film], directed by Aliaksei Paluyan (Germany), will open this year’s programme and will be screened in the K.Suns cinema in Riga, the usual venue for the forum. The film, which follows three actors from an underground theatre in Minsk during the democratic protests against president Lukashenka's regime, was presented at the Baltic Sea Docs pitching forum in 2020 and received the Current Time TV Award.

The rest of the selection includes 7 Years of Lukas Graham [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] by René Sascha Johannsen (Denmark), which follows the rise to stardom of singer Lukas Forchhammer; Caught in the Net [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] by Vít Klusák and Barbora Chalupová (Czech Republic/Slovakia), which topped the Czech box office and investigates the taboo topic of online child abuse; the very personal story of Jane by Charlotte [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] (France), where French artist Charlotte Gainsbourg unfurls her relationship with her mother, Jane Birkin; the exquisite story of a former prime minister of Georgia who collects century-old trees, Taming the Garden [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Salomé Jashi
scheda film] by Salomé Jashi (Switzerland/Germany/Georgia); and the story of an artist who befriends the thief who stole her paintings, The Painter and the Thief [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Benjamin Ree
scheda film] by Benjamin Ree (Norway).

In addition to the cinema programme, Baltic Sea Docs will mark its 25th edition with a special anniversary film selection showcasing nine films that, throughout the years, have been presented at the forum at the project stage. The anniversary programme will be screened on the www.filmas.lv platform, administered by the National Film Centre of Latvia (the organiser of Baltic Sea Docs), and three of the titles will be available for viewers worldwide on 12 September: New Times at Crossroad Street by long-time forum participant Ivars Seleckis, which is the second film in a trilogy about the inhabitants of the small street in Riga; Before Flying Back to the Earth by Arūnas Matelis (Germany/Lithuania), one of the most internationally acclaimed Lithuanian documentaries; and My Mother by Maj Wechselmann (Sweden/Canada), which follows the life story of her mum, Regina Korinman.

The rest of the anniversary selection, which will only be available in Latvia, includes A Lesson of Belarusian by Miroslaw Dembinski (Belarus/Poland), Disco and Atomic War [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] by Jaak Kilmi (Estonia/Finland), Roses. Film-Cabaret [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] by Irena Stetsenko (Ukraine), Russian Avant-Garde: A Romance with the Revolution by Alexander Krivonos (Russia/Denmark), Sunny [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] by Keti Machavariani (Georgia) and The Other Side of the River [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Antonia Kilian
scheda film] by Antonia Kilian (Germany/Finland).

The Baltic Sea Forum for Documentaries is organised by the National Film Centre of Latvia, and is supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia, the State Culture Capital Foundation (specifically, the “KultūrElpa” special programme) and Riga City Council.