Termini

Laila Pakalnina / Latvia / 2024 / International Premiere / 71 min.

synopsis

The final stops of buses, trams and trolleybuses in the suburbs of Riga. “Non-places” with no specific character, where nothing special happens and yet there is no stopping movement. Some people go from here to work or school, others return home. Or they work in their flower and vegetable stalls near the bus stops. Morning, evening, in snow and rain. Weekdays and holidays. Laila Pakalniņa captures their work, waiting and passing, calm and impatient, in tight moving shots. Gints Bērziņš's black and white camera stays at one point, describing a circle that begins and ends nowhere. Ordinary stopping points, which we use without thinking about their function, become important crossroads in a wordless urban symphony, to whose unchanging rhythm the entire metropolis must submit. Exploring the poetry in everyday routine and repetition, the film completes the director's ornamental trilogy on public transport, complemented by The Bus (2004) and Homes (2021).

“The ever-moving camera creates the form of the film, peering through the window of a bus, trolleybus, or tram, observing the world.”

Quote source: Riga International Film Festival

biography

Latvian director Laila Pakalniņa (1962) graduated from the Moscow Film Institute (VGIK) in 1991, majoring in film directing. She has directed and written dozens of documentaries and feature films that have been screened at Cannes, Venice, Berlin and Locarno.