Cinema
The Crossroad
Šķērsiela
Ivars Seleckis · 1988
Synopsis
In a small street in Pārdaugava, in Riga, the film paints a portrait of ten ordinary residents whose lives seem kept apart from the perestroika stirring the centre: Aldis, a stonecutter and occasional preacher, who runs a monument workshop in his yard; Daiga, pregnant and abandoned, granddaughter of a famous writer to whom the house once belonged; Osis, who lives with his eighty-year-old mother; Pēteris and Olga, who grate horseradish for the market. Each faces life with a deadpan, quietly confident humour.
Context
A black-and-white film of eighty-five minutes, written by Tālivaldis Margēvičs, photographed by its director and set to music by Ivars Vīgners. Latvians Online sees in it a cross-section of Latvia in the last years of the Soviet regime, in its chaos and pathos. The director returned to it ten years later with Jaunie laiki Šķērsielā, in 1999, and continued it until 2013 with Kapitālisms Šķērsielā.
Who it is for
An attentive and often funny documentary, to be watched as a gallery of neighbouring portraits.
Prizes and reception
Felix for Best European Documentary in 1990, then the Robert Flaherty and Joris Ivens prizes.
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