Trekteris Guntis

MANSUR’S WAR DANCE
Mansur Musaev is a 12 years old Chechen boy who has spent his childhood during the wartime and being a refugee. His health is undermined and the boy is slowly going blind. Mansur is an exceptionally talented dancer who has been dancing the Caucasian national dances since the age of a toddler. The film about Mansur is intended to be a documentary drama where talent is fighting for independence against the background of political manipulations and personal drama.

Flashback
This is a confession in film. I have dedicated it to all the cameramen whom I had the honor of working with, and whose one eye was dry and the other one - in tears. Every single shot out of 400 shots this film consists of is a true document. Altogether, they form an imaginative weave of a dramatic plot, unique philosophy, personal world perception, and certainly, visual culture. All the rest - words, music, noises, silence, all having their own voice - have grown together with the images dwelling in this film. A person's inner life, personality, and the eternal problems - love, birth, death, and destiny - are what have always attracted me as a documentary filmmaker... And I have always doubted if we, documentary filmmakers, have the right to expose other people's life? I was doubtful, still I went on filming. "The Last Judgment" " 1987. A story from the cell of death. Repentance of a person who has been sentenced to death for murder. An old dilemma, dating back to the times of the Bible - to execute or to mercy? "The Restricted Area" - 1975, The destiny of a teenage boy serving his time at the juvenile delinquent prison. The family and social roots of the drama. "Once There Were Seven Simeons" — 1989. The famous family jazz group from Irkutsk. Their wild attempt to break away from the USSR to the West by hijacking a plane. And - the tragic end, "The Last Celebration" -1972-1980. An optimistic drama of a man who has devoted himself to people. Death as continuation of life. "The Song of Solomon" - 1989. A childbirth. The torturing entrance of a human child into God's world. The more elevated meaning of being and earthly delights of a man and a woman. "And they became one flesh, and they were not ashamed." "Flashback" - born from -the short film, Ten Minutes Older, of 1978. Together with the cameraman Juris Podnieks, we shot this film in one take at the Puppet Theatre. For ten minutes, uninterruptedly, we were looking into the face of a little boy on the third row... And in the half-dark of the theatre hall we were watching the depths of the human soul as reflected in this tremulous face. In 1999,1 decided to return to our boy. What had happened to this tremulous soul in real life, with real, not fairy-tale, good and evil? Together with cameraman Victor Griberman, I started making a new film, "Twenty Years Older," having no suspicion that I am sending off a boomerang. I have never supported the philosophy that a man can come to know himself only at,a fatal margin - like facing death. And then, I found myself in a similar situation. The door to the new film was opened to me by the White Angel; the Black Angel was hiding behind it. My wife came down with a terminal disease, and I myself had to face a heart operation. I was on the verge of giving up everything. But the challenge of documentary filmmaking was stronger than me. I turned the camera to myself, and looked back... Flashback! I looked back at my films, at my life which, as it turned out, it was possible to prolong if the open heart was touched. I looked back at the sad destiny of my wife who had faded away in front of my eyes... at my tiny hometown Ludza in Latvia -a small town where I was born, where everything had began. My mom was a dentist, and my dad was a photographer whose life-dream was to make a film... It was a free flight: Riga-Moscow-New York-Jerusalem... I delved into the past like in a dream. And it was not important what had happened before or later. Everything went on inside me...

Photo: Inta Ruka. Portraits of People at Home
Inta Ruka is a photographer well - known in Latvia. She was one of two Latvian photographers invited to take part at the international Stockholm project for photography Under/Exposed on the eve of 1999. The biennial in Venice, the recent exhibition at Riga Gallery… But on weekends and summer holidays Inta, as usual, will travel to farmsteads at the remote parts of Latvia or walk through the suburbs of Riga taking pictures of her country people.

I'm Coming Back For Real

The Olympic Man
The portrayal of Mārtiņš Rubenis, the Latvian luger and the Olympic medal winner – in 2006 in Turin the athlete won the first Winter Olympics medal in Latvian history. By contrast, in today’s cultural circles, he is also known as Dj Betons from Varka Kru. Like a medieval knight Lohengrin, Rubenis goes to the track to fight against the rivals, time, the world and himself.

Without Fear
In 2004, Larissa Trembovler, a philosophy professor and a mother of four, leaves her husband and marries Yigal Amir – the assassin of Yitzhak Rabin. Three years later she gives birth to their son. This unique story of life, death and love is be told by the veteran filmmaker Herz Frank.

The Invisible City
Paradise in hell. This is how the life of the inhabitants of the Chernobyl Zone of Alienation could best be described. This is a story about a city that was built as a paradise, but transformed into hell; for both itself and the rest of the world. This is a city slowly turning back into paradise but in a different way than was originally intended. This film is to be shot in two places: the towns of Chernobyl and Pripyat in the Ukraine and Visaginas in Lithuania. The nuclear power plants in both countries were built in the 1970s, in deserted places, the same type of plant and both were launched at almost the same time. Everyone knows about the catastrophe and consequences of the first. Meanwhile, Visaginas became a part of independent Lithuania, and was closed after strict EU recommendations. Life in the town is falling into decay… Now a decision has been made to build a new nuclear power plant in Visaginas. It rouses a certain enthusiasm among the inhabitants of the town. The sad stories of Chernobyl and Fukushima do not frighten them; they believe that they were just accidents. The film represents three periods of time – the past, present and future. The past will be addressed in documentary chronicles about the construction of the Soviet city of happiness. The present will appear through the new-built city and the nuclear power plant in Lithuania (Visaginas). The future will be represented by a fictional time after a devastating catastrophe at the plant, when the city is in ruins, radiation penetrating everything. But people and nature continue living in these extreme circumstances (as in Chernobyl). The film develops as a story of one city, one paradise lost and found again.

Guntis Trekteris is an experienced Latvian producer. He is the producer of the internationally acclaimed documentaries My Mother’s Farm, Egg Lady, and Flashback (all shown in IDFA competition), Romeo & Juliet, Riga. 10 Years After and many others as well as the feature films Midsummer Madness, The Dark Deer (both co-productions with Austria), Handful of Bullets (a co-production with Sweden) and Leaving by the Way .

Documentaries: Dresses, Mothers and Daughters - directed by Ilze Burkovska-Jacobsen, 2010; The Olympic Man – directed by Viesturs Kairiss, 2009; My Mother’s Farm – directed by Ilze Burkovska-Jacobsen, 2008; Walter Zapp: The Minox Was My Life – directed by Kurt Widmer, 2007; Romeo & Juliet – directed by Viesturs Kairiss, 2005; The Monument – directed by Viesturs Kairiss, 2005; Photo Inta Ruka – directed by Arvids Krievs, 2004; Rush – directed by Una Celm, 2003; Flashback – directed by Herz Frank, 2002; The Magic Flute – directed by Viesturs Kairiss, 2002; Riga – 10 Years After… – directed by Arta Biseniece, 2002; Egg Lady – directed by Una Celma, 2000; The Rape of Europe – directed by Askolds Saulitis, 1998; The Ferry – directed by Laila Pakalnina, 1994; Two – directed by Renate Cane, 1994.

2001 Latvian Film Prize Best Film for: Pa celam aizejot (2002).