MŪRIS

A photo from 1940 shows the body of Hermīne Puriņa, who was one of the first victims of the Soviet secret service in Latvia. The picture serves as a starting point for various questions: How much does a photo tell? What is a border? Where does it run? And what makes a patriot? In a very personal and multi-faceted film, director and historian Dāvis Sīmanis looks for answers. In addition to numerous absurd border towns and national customs, he also finds two men with bizarre border missions: While Ansis Ataols Bērziņš violently protests against the persistence of Soviet traditions in Latvia and paradoxically hides from the Latvian police in Russia, Aijo Beness as a Bolshevik advocates a return to the Soviet system, for which the son of a Russian woman and a Ugandan man fights in the Donbass on the side of the pro-Russian separatists. Dāvis Sīmanis is always present and thus creates on the one hand a shocking picture of borders that run directly through people, and on the other hand sensational shots of Donetsk and the "Hotel Prague", where pro-Russian fighters train. RP