Agapitova and the Rescued 2009

This is a film about the return of an individual to the Far North, and to the past. Agapitova, Igarka – the vast lands of Siberia, to which Ilmārs Knaģis and 4,000 other children from Latvia were deported in 1941. In the autumn of 1942, 700 mothers and children of different nationalities were sent to the death island of Agapitova. Only 60 survived, among them six Latvian children – Biruta Kazaka, Pāvels Kliesbergs, Venta Grāvīte, Ilmārs Grāvītis, Pēteris Bērziņš and Valentīna Voiciša. The question remains: Why did this happen? And why is no one to blame?

The Fathers Over There 2016

Andris Caune, Ojārs Grensbergs, Imants Grāvītis and Jānis Zemtautis spent many years in the Gulag camps. They survived. In 1954, a riot broke out in Jezkazan, Kazakhstan. The men’s camp and women’s camp joined together and held on for 40 days. Then came the tanks that killed more than 1,000 of them. Austra Vērpe met her future husband there. They were lucky to stay alive. The dream of the musician Zigfrīds Muktupāvels was to find the grave of his paternal uncle in far-off Kazakhstan. He was named after his uncle, who never came home. Zigfrīds and a cousin headed off into the steppes to look for a monument reading “Zigfrīds Muktupāvels.” The next round of deportations occurred in 1949, and whole families were sent to Siberia. Fathers were tried in court, a great many ended up in punitive camps in Vorkuta and Inta. Skaidrīte Jostmane and Māris Landers travelled to Vorkuta to find their father’s gravesite.

Garden With A Ghost 1983