Sisters in Longing (Iļģuciema māsas), dir. Elita Kļaviņa, 60’, Latvia, 2022
In other circumstances, most likely, they would have never met. They are bonded by their pain, longing, and their current residence – a semi-open prison for women. A murderer of her own children, a three-time convict for drug dealing and one complicit of crime against her daughter as forced by her husband are the film’s main protagonists.
They are invited to stage Anton Chekhov’s play, Three Sisters. Entwined with the fates of the protagonists of Chekhov’s play, it is no longer possible to draw a border between the performance and the imprisoned women’s lives. Personal, harrowing and moving, the stories revealed by the imprisoned women reflect the society they live in and the longing for a life they dream about. As Moscow is the lost paradise for Chekhov’s three sisters, freedom and a decent life is the fulfillment of the longing of the film’s protagonists who have to spend the best years of their lives imprisoned.
Saturated with fear and abuse from an early age, the lives of the film’s protagonists in adulthood turn into destructive relationships with physical, sexual and emotional abuse, inevitable despair and loneliness without support, and with domestic violence as a driving force for further violence.
National Premiere Artdocfest Riga, Baltic focus competition programme, March 8, 2022
Scriptwriter Elita Kļaviņa
Cinematographer Baiba Kļava
Editor Sandra Alksne
Producers Antra Gaile, Līga Gaisa
Production Company Air Productions
Supported by
State Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia
Riga City Council
Contacts
Līga Gaisa
+371 2929 9353
liga.gaisa@airproductions.lv