1000 teenagers, one massive folk dance, and the summer they'll never forget.
A high-school folk dancing group heads to Latvian School Youth Song and Dance Festival, an event that takes place every five years and is part of the Latvian national identity – this is the culmination point of five years of work. Away from their homes and parents, they spend seven days and nights together. They are 18 and have just graduated, and this seems to be the last idle summer of their lives. Dreams mix with boredom, silly jokes with serious conversations. Taking care of one another creates affection and grows into a collective power. There are thousands like them at the festival. Every individual sensation turns into a common celebration that becomes more than just a tradition.
Cinematography
Sweeping festival scale meets intimate handheld closeness.
Direction
Dreibergs disappears; you feel like you're 18 again.
Sound
Folk music that builds to overwhelming, beautiful crescendo.
Director
Dzintars Dreibergs
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The Latvian Song and Dance Festival is UNESCO-listed, dating to 1873 — this isn't just a party, it's national survival through Soviet occupation and beyond.
Dreibergs shot this between fiction features; the 'unknown' cast are real dancers who'd actually just graduated, blurring documentary and performance into something truer than either.
LV
