25th 2ANNAS ISFF

Nothing ever really stands still. We travel, we move, we evolve forever. Short film curators have a unique opportunity to watch films relevant to society and art in a short period of time, but what happens when we step back a little? From what we see, can we draw any conclusions about ourselves, or our futures?

It is not possible to distill 25 years of history into one program of films, but looking back at past winners of our Grand Prix (the Golden Anna), we can catch a glimpse of the flow of time with our own eyes. This program features our most recognized films from 2ANNAS history, screened in chronological order from 2007 to 2020.

Programme curator: Laima Graždanoviča

The seven-day-long journey of the festival will be opened by Laima Graždanoviča un Agnese Krastkalne. 

This will be followed by a performance and concert by the artist Sabine Moore aka “The Waterflower”. The opening will be a live video from Splendid Palace. With 3-camera live video editing, a quality visual adventure will be guaranteed, in which nature and plants will be the main element.

The opening concludes with a screening of Minute Bodies: The Intimate World of F. Percy Smith (2016). At the beginning of the 20th century, in his North London studio, Percy Smith created time-lapse, animation, and micro-cinematic techniques to capture the secrets of nature in motion. 

The Film Studio of The Centre of Creative Learning (CCL) “Annas 2” invites you to join the award ceremony of the short film competition “Earth - Our Home”. Children and young people between the ages of 10 and 25 were invited to submit short films of up to 3 minutes, which corresponds to the theme of the competition. 

In the 200,000 years following the emergence of modern humans, we have had a profound impact on our environment. Despite our relatively weak bodies, our perceptive minds found ways to tame the elements, conquer deadly diseases and reshape the world to our advantage. Sadly, this great power has proven as destructive as it has been creative.

Named after a geological epoch dating from the commencement of significant human impact on Earth's geology and ecosystems, Anthropocene is a selection of international short films exploring our species’ fraught and fragile relationship with the natural world. 

Histories of Wolves and Thin Ice examine the toxic impact people have had on the animal kingdom from the past to the present, while Il Capo and Apocalypse Airlines highlight the strain human consumption of resources continues to place the planet under. Finally, The Chair, Pilar and Plastic Bag ask that if things do not change, what might happen in the Earth’s future? 

Without addressing the suffocating layer of plastic clogging the world’s oceans; or learning to live alongside keystone species essential for the planet’s ecological stability; or being able to divorce production and consumption from the mass incineration of fossil fuels, that may be a future without us altogether.

Programme curator Jack Brindelli

“WE MAKE LOVE WITH THE EARTH. [..] We shamelessly hug trees, massage the earth with our feet, and talk erotically to plants. We are skinny dippers, sun worshipers, and stargazers. We caress rocks, are pleasured by waterfalls, and admire the Earth’s curves often. We make love with the Earth through our senses. We celebrate our E-spots. We are very dirty.”

–Ecosex Manifesto by Elizabeth M. Stephens & Annie M. Sprinkle

Sexuality and environment are intrinsically linked. It is the creative force that lives equally in the flow of the birch juice and the erection. It is our embodied way of being and creating together that extends way beyond the trivialised capitalist understanding of sex. Inter-species sex has also been going on for thousands of years. Orchids, for example, have been doing it with and through the bees. 

This film program is not only an invitation to look, but also to dip your fingers into the soil, to seduce a spring blossom, be dominated by nettles and build closer relationships with your house plants. And above all, “to love, honor and cherish you Earth, until death brings you closer together forever”.

Programme curator Linda Boļšakova

In collaboration with the Short Film Conference, we invite all short film professionals to join the event. Our aim? To spice up the conversation on climate change and nurture it into concrete actions. A more sustainable future awaits! 

More information here. 

Afterward, come and celebrate Europe’s emerging talents and the promotion of shorts across borders! Join us and discover two European initiatives dedicated to short films - T-Port and This is Short.

More information here. 

Poet and sound artist, member of the text group “Orbīta”, Arturs Punte. 

Architect and sound artist, member of the group "bernurits", Maksims Šenteļevs. 

In the performance "Poetica Mitis", the word will return to the beginning of the very place where it originated, and where it should return to forever - into the lap of nature.

More info HERE

In collaboration with the Short Film Conference, we invite all short film professionals to join the event. Our aim? To spice up the conversation on climate change and nurture it into concrete actions. A more sustainable future awaits! More information here.

“Parasites of the planet”, raps Valencia Clement, describing our civilization. But must it be this way? Can’t we manage to live in symbiosis with plants, animals, other people, the Earth, and its biosphere? The films of this program show that we need alternatives to destruction, even as many of us are carelessly consuming, while others are sinking in an ocean of waste. We all live on this planet together – and only by realizing our interconnection and interdependence, can we all start to rebuild.  It is time to share not only a responsibility but also power and hope.

Programme curator Astra Zoldnere

In his book “Umwelt und Innenwelt der Tiere” the Baltic German zoologist and biologist Jakob von Uexküll defines “Umwelt” – the limits of a living being's perception that defines its “natural” environment. Although the advancement of technology furthers the divide between “man” and Earth's other processes, the cataclysms of this world continue to render our anthropocentric, arrogant notions of “nature” as a background very foolish. We, humans, are just a small part in the somewhat brutal operations of “the wild”, which views destruction only as a part of an ever-going cycle.

This program offers different attitudes towards the notions of “natural” – the outright violence of “God-Blessed” seems easier to “digest” than the neat environment of “Cats in Riga”, where the news of a nearby raging war can be switched off at the convenience of an individual. A similar contrast permeates “System” and “Pickled Long Cucumbers”, evoking a question – does the dirt and entropy of “wilderness” scare you more than the systematic and schematic man-made environments?

The goal of this selection is to calm and activate by ridding the term “natural” of its pastoral overtone and offering to rethink the falsely lulling position of power as “the crown of creation”. We are nature, we are natural and we’ll experience a natural end – may this realization bring you tranquility.

Programme curator: Žulijens Nuhums Kulibali

The program is a collaboration with the Institute for Environmental Solutions the upcoming exhibition of contemporary art "Field research"

Don't miss the opportunity to get acquainted with the winners of 2ANNAS 2021 live on facebook.com and celebrate the festival together with the festival team, jury and directors. 

What has the international jury decided? Get acquainted with the best short films of 2021 in the "Award-winning film screening"