JANUARY

Riga 1991: Soviet special forces have been deployed in an attempt to supress Baltic efforts towards independence. Aspiring filmmaker Jazis is struggling with the start of adult life, with love's arrival on the scene, but with increasing violence in his country. Wojciech Staro?'s cinematography experiments with diverse analogue image formats, in a gripping, impassioned narrative that pulls the viewer in close to the plot, using archival material and point-of-view shots from the protagonist's perspective, establishing an emotional connection to Jazis and the challenges he faces. JANUARY, which reads as a sort of homage to Baltic documentary film and filmmakers like Juris Podnieks, not only tackles themes such as politics, love, loss and the journey to selfdiscovery – it also treats the motif of dreams, and the price one pays to follow them.