05/12/2007

The most expensive feature film ever made in Latvia, the €2.8m budget historical film Defenders of Riga by Aigars Grauba is breaking box office records with over 100.000 admissions in almost three weeks on domestic release.

Still playing in two cinemas in Riga, with another two prints travelling in the regions, the film beat last year's Top title at the box office, The Da Vinci Code which sold less than 100,000 tickets.

"Latvians rarely go to the movies (0.9% admissions per capita in 2006) and if they do, they go to see US films that dominate the screens. So a film like Defenders of Riga is very positive for Latvian cinema as a whole", commented Latvian producer Julija Pasnaka (Red Cats Film Studio). Her counterpart Guntars Laucis (Fa Filma) added: "In Riga, there were fantastic lines of people waiting to see the film, older people but also youngsters, probably brought by their parents or grand-parents to see this patriotic film."

Both producers are attending this week the 6th Baltic Event in Tallinn where Defenders of Riga is among 8 new Baltic films screening to some 140 professionals attending the event. Produced by TV mogul Andrejs Ekis (Platforma), Defenders of Riga praises the action of the Latvian army and over thousands of volunteers who managed to save Riga from a German invasion in 1919 and to preserve the independence of Latvia.

The film was shot on a backlot purposely built for the film outside of Riga where Platforma is now preparing for another historical film by Janis Streics, set to start shooting next Summer.