Barely 25 years old, Latvia, the country, makes about five to six feature films in a year. The film industry here is a polar opposite of the one in India; they have about two or three multiplexes in every city, with about two or three art house single screens. Their movies are mostly funded by the government and they produce more documentaries than features. There is no ‘star actor’ syndrome, unlike India where every Khan and Kapoor reigns supreme, instead Latvia places importance on the film director instead. One of them is Juris Poskus who is in Bangalore to promote his movie Kolka Cool at BIFFES.
“It’s been a very short trip. We came two days ago and I fell sick on the first day. But I’m really glad to be here and I’ve met many interesting people in this short while. I attended the screening of Kolka Cool here and we had an interesting Q&A session with the audience. It’s amazing how the Indian audience responded to the film and got with it even though it was a dark comedy and not a genre that’s very popular in India,” says Juris.
Set in a small village along the Baltic coast and shot in black and white, Kolka Cool tries to unravel the lives of three brothers who are wasting their lives drinking beer, fooling around with friends and taking on the occasional odd job. When the second brother decides to get married and settle down, the other siblings unexpectedly create trouble.
Juris hasn’t had the time to watch many movies at the film festival yet, however he enjoys Bollywood films. “It’s a great time for Indian cinema. It’s coming up quite well, with most of the mainstream movies showing Hollywood-like quality. An Indian movie I quite liked in recent times was LSD. It was funny, interesting and impulsive. A very well directed movie," he adds. Interestingly, Juris is on his way next to Mumbai to commence work on a feature film that he will be shooting completely in India, about a girl from a circus.