An 85-year-old composer who won't stop—pandemic, grief, and time itself be damned.
Raimonds Pauls is almost 85 years old, rehearses almost every day and performs at least once a week. What drives him? Not only he is the most popular composer in Latvia: his songs are sung all over the world. "Dāvāja Māriņa" is so popular in Japan that Paul received the Japanese Order of the Rising Sun. In concerts, he collaborates with world stars of Latvian origin - soprano Elīna Garanča, organist Iveta Apkalna, conductor Mariss Jansons. The Latvian Television film crew follows him during the pandemic, realizing that the restrictions and threats of Covid-19 hardly stop the Maestro in the course of his eternal engine. How does he cope with the challenges that time imposes on a person's physical form and the loneliness when most friends have passed away? What is the source of his inexhaustible lifestyle and creative spirit?
Score
Pauls' own compositions become the film's heartbeat—obviously essential.
Cinematography
Pandemic-empty halls contrast his stubborn, solitary performances.
Production
Latvian TV crew captured rare access across lockdown restrictions.
Director
Andrejs Verhoustinskis
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Pauls composed during Soviet occupation, making his music a clandestine vessel of Latvian identity—this film finally lets him speak unfiltered.
The 'perpetuum mobile' title isn't metaphor: Pauls literally rehearsed daily through fever and pandemic, missing only when physically forced.
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