Section: Feature Film Competition

Modris

Modris

Juris Kursietis
Latvia, Greece, Germany, 2014, 98 Min
Boo Productions

Seventeen-year-old Modris lives in a gray microdistrict. Despite having a pretty girlfriend he's apathetic, generally unenthusiastic about school and always at loggerheads with his single, weary mother. Time and again he steals minor sums of money in order to feed his gambling addiction. When, in the middle of winter, he cashes in on his mother's radiator with a Russian pawnbroker, it proves the final straw: She presses charges against him for theft. Modris is given a two-year suspended sentence, in part due to his blundering and apathetic behaviour in court. From then on he has probation conditions to stick to, one of which is a ban on the accrual of further debts: The alternative, should be commit three further minor offences, is prison. The youngster refuses to change however, as he continues to quarrel with his mother and neglect his girlfriend. In fact it's only his absent father who seems to awaken his curiosity.

Having produced several documentary films, Latvian filmmaker Juris Kursietis' début feature film tells the tale of a young man who, though he might have almost reached the age of majority, is far from grown-up. He also speaks of an east European EU member state whose legal system has stagnated somewhere between American zero-tolerance and a Soviet-style disregard for human rights, criminalising youths whose lives are hampered by a lack of ambition and maturity.

Filmformat
DCP | Farbe / colour
Drehbuch
Juris Kursietis
Kamera
Bogumil Godfrejów
Ton
Leandros Ntounis
Schnitt
Yorgos Mavropsaridis
Ausstattung
Aivars Žukovskis
Musik
Līga Celma Kursiete
Darsteller
Kristers Pikša, Rēzija Kalniņa
Produzent
Vicky Miha (Boo Productions)
Produktion
Boo Productions
Co-Produktion
Juris Kursietis (RedDotMedia), Ingmar Trost (Sutor Kolonko)
Kontakt
Boo Productions
Vicky Miha
26, Ierou Lohou Str.
151 24 Athens
Greece
Tel.: +30.21.0610.0730
vicky.boo.productions@gmail.com
Juris Kursietis

Juris Kursietis - – served as a foreign correspondent for Latvian television, before taking up directing and scripwriting at the Nothern Media School, from which he graduated in 2008 with his thesis film RIT BUS / WILL HAVE IT TOMORROW. In the same year he served as assistant director for KOLKA COOL, which wwas awarded the FIPRESCI Award at the 2012 FilmFestival Cottbus.

Movies
THE BICYCLE STORY (2007, short)
RIT BUS (2008, short)
BEGŠANA NO KUBAS (2009, doc)
13. JANVĀRIS (2009, doc)
HAKERI (2010, doc)