Marijas klusums

1937. The passengers on the train are preparing for the border crossing, actress Maria Leiko among them. She has been summoned to the USSR by high-ranking secret police officer Jēkabs Peterss in order to bid farewell to her daughter in the morgue – and to learn that she died in childbirth. The grandchild is healthy; Maria wants to take care of her and stays in Moscow, where she works with Asja Lācis at the Latvian Skatuve Theatre. But in reality, she’s playing another role entirely, unwittingly: that of an innocent victim ensnared by Stalinist terror. Dāvis Sīmanis is interested in the radical ideologies of the 20th century in Eastern Europe. With self-assurance, he sketches out this moment of free-floating accord with Soviet power and crafts an instructive narrative about the logic of human violence. Whether an ardent Bolshevik or an apolitical artist, everyone imagines themselves to be untouchable. Blind to the fact that bread is growing scarce on the streets and violence is omnipresent, they themselves create the monster that consumes them. The Latvian Operation is a history lesson that doubles as an allegory or even a prologue to Russia’s “operations” of today. (Christiane Büchner, Barbara Wurm)

Dāvis Sīmanis, Latvian filmmaker, academic and theorist. He has directed historical feature films, numerous poetic documentary films as well as cross-genre features that have participated in various major festivals.

Production Gints Grūbe, Inese Boka-Grūbe. Production company Mistrus Media (Riga, Latvia). Director Dāvis Sīmanis. Screenplay Dāvis Sīmanis, Magali Negroni, Tabita Rudzāte. Cinematography Andrejs Rudzāts. Editing Ieva Veiverytė. Music Paulius Kilbauskas, Justinas Štaras. Sound Jonas Maksvytis. Production design Kristīne Jurjāne. Costumes Kristīne Jurjāne, Rūta Kuplā, Aija Strazdiņa. Make-up Aija Beata Rjabovska. Casting Māra Liniņa. Co-producer Justė Michailinaitė, Kęstutis Drazdauskas. Co-production Broom Films. With Olga Šepicka-Slapjuma, Artūrs Skrastiņš, Vilis Daudziņš, Inese Kučinska, Ģirts Ķesteris, Gļebs Beļikovs, Dana Ščerbina, Ženija Škuberte-Sudmale.

Films: 2006: Versija.LNO (short film). 2009: Valkyrie Limited (documentary). 2010: Pasaules skana / Sounds Under the Sun (documentary). 2013: Pēdējā tempļa hronikas / The Chronicles of the Last Temple (documentary). 2014: Escaping Riga (documentary). 2016: Pelnu sanatorija / Exiled. 2018: Mūris / D Is for Division (documentary), Tēvs Nakts / The Mover. 2020: The Rossellinis (documentary). 2021: Gads pirms kara / The Year Before the War. 2022: Emīlija. Latvijas Preses Karaliene / Emily. Queen of the Press (series, co-director episode). 2023: Pansija / Pansion in the Mansion (series, co-director episode 7). 2024: Marija klusums / Maria’s Silence.

Bonus Material