The 6th International Documentary Film Festival ARTDOCFEST/RIGA, taking place from 28 February to 8 March, announces the films selected for the Artdocfest Open and Baltic Focus competition programmes and opens ticket sales.
The Baltic Focus programme presents documentary films by filmmakers from the Baltic Sea region (excluding Russia), exploring individual experience within broader social, historical and geopolitical contexts. The films address themes of war and its consequences, collective and personal memory, the search for identity, loss, belonging, and the fragility of society in times of change. The programme highlights the Baltic region as a space where the personal inevitably intersects with the political, and where history continues to actively shape the present.
Festival producer and curator of the Baltic Focus competition Vaiva Bauze comments: “The Baltic Focus programme reveals the Baltic region as a sensitive seismograph of European upheavals, where personal stories become testimonies of an era, and documentary cinema becomes a way of understanding both the past and today’s reality.”
This year, the Baltic Focus competition will include two Latvian world premieres, while one film is selected for both festival competitions. In total, 10 films will compete for the Herz Award in the Baltic Focus competition:
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Sailors, dir. Milja Viita, Finland
(DocPoint; Midnight Sun Film Festival (Sodankylä); Festival ECRÃ of Experimental Art and Cinema (Rio de Janeiro); Archivio Aperto (Bologna); European Film Festival Scanorama; Experimental Superstars (Novi Sad) — Best Documentary Award, among others) -
The Naked Truth, dir. kito kato, Latvia (World premiere)
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Laguna, dir. Šarūnas Bartas, Lithuania, France
(La Biennale di Venezia; Doc@PÖFF; Lisboa Film Festival) -
Edge Of The Night, dir. Vladimir Loginov, Estonia (Doc@PÖFF)
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Mr. Nobody Against Putin, dir. David Borenstein, Pavel Talankin, Denmark, Czechia
(Sundance SFF; PÖFF) -
Overman, dir. Ivars Tontegode, Latvia (World premiere)
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Notes from the Woods, dir. Riho Vastrik, Estonia
(PÖFF 2025; MAFF 2025) -
Sabat – The Disappearance of a Diplomat, dir. Anna Maria Beeck, Germany
(DOK.fest München; Filmkunstfest MV Schwerin, among others) -
Silver, dir. Natalia Koniarz, Poland, Norway, Finland
(Krakow Film Festival — Audience Award and FIPRESCI Award; Ji.hlava) -
The Fish, dir. Karolina Breguła, Sweden (International premiere)
A total of 19 documentary films have been selected for the Artdocfest Open competition. Festival President Vitaly Mansky says:
“When shaping the Artdocfest/Open 2026 competition programme, we carefully analysed audience expectations, the so-called ‘war fatigue’, and the widespread sense of confusion and fear that characterises society in a rapidly changing world. We understood that this often creates a desire to escape from reality, or at least to immerse oneself in a world of carefree cinematic illusions. However, our programme is not only an attempt to confront the audience with reality, but also a reflection of our time as interpreted by leading filmmakers who document the era in which we are destined to live. In other words, this is how we see the world today.”
The Artdocfest Open competition includes the following films:
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2000 Meters to Andriivka, dir. Mstyslav Chernov, Ukraine
(Sundance SFF; CPX:DOX Award winner; nominations at IDFA, Hot Docs, Sheffield Doc/Fest, among others; shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film) -
Memory, dir. Vladlena Sandu, France
(IDFA; Doc@PÖFF; European Film Academy shortlist) -
A little gray wolf will come, dir. Zhanna Agalakova, Croatia, Netherlands, France
(Sheffield Doc/Fest) -
The Doors Are Closing, dir. Yana Isaenko, France (Message to Man IFF)
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Shards of Light, dir. Mila Teshaieva, Germany (Sheffield Doc/Fest)
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IMAGO, dir. Denis Oumar Pitsaev, France, Belgium
(IDFA; Semaine de la Critique, Cannes) -
Notes of a True Criminal, dir. Aleksandr Rodnyanskiy, Andriy Alferov, Ukraine
(La Biennale di Venezia; DocPoint; Tromsø IFF) -
When I Get Jailed, dir. Anastasiia Vedenskaia, France (IDFA)
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Better Go Mad in the Wild, dir. Miro Remo, Czechia, Slovakia
(Winner, Karlovy Vary IFF; DOK Leipzig, among others) -
My Grandmother Is a Skydiver, dir. Polina Piddubna, Germany, Ukraine
(La Cinef, Cannes; KISFF) -
Mr. Nobody Against Putin, dir. David Borenstein, Pavel Talankin, Denmark, Czechia
(Sundance SFF; PÖFF) -
Traces, dir. Alisa Kovalenko, Marysia Nikitiuk, Ukraine
(Berlinale, among others) -
Politzek: Voices That Defy the Kremlin, dir. Manon Loizeau, Ekaterina Mamontova, France, Belgium
(Deutsche Welle) -
The dogs, dir. Aliman Toktogulova, Karash Zhanishov, Kyrgyzstan
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Electing Ms Santa, dir. Raisa Razmerita, Moldova, Romania (PÖFF)
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Welded Together, dir. Anastasiya Miroshnichenko, France, Netherlands, Belgium
(Sheffield Doc/Fest) -
Trillion, dir. Victor Kossakovsky, Norway, USA
(IDFA; Göteborg IFF) -
A Letter to David, dir. Tom Shoval, Israel, USA
(Berlinale; Karlovy Vary IFF, among others) -
Winter in March, dir. Natalia Mirzoyan, Estonia, Armenia, France, Belgium
(La Cinef, Cannes; Academy Award qualification in the Short Film category)
The festival will open on 28 February at 6:00 PM with the screening of Time to the Target, the latest film by Vitaly Mansky, which premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2025.
The festival closing on 7 March will be dedicated to the outstanding Latvian documentary filmmaker and founder of poetic documentary cinema Herz Frank, whose 100th anniversary is celebrated this year.
Tickets for festival screenings at Splendid Palace cinema will go on sale gradually from 20 January.
Screenings of ARTDOCFEST/RIGA will also take place at the festival’s traditional venues — Splendid Palace, the Zuzeum Art Centre (101 Lāčplēša Street), hosting the out-of-competition art-related programme ArtDoc&ProAr, and the Media Hub Riga community centre Power-Up Space (21 Merķeļa Street), where the out-of-competition programme Real Talk will be presented.
The festival’s partners include the State Culture Capital Foundation, the Embassy of Israel, the German television channel Deutsche Welle, Splendid Palace cinema, Tallink Hotel, Benjamins House, the Media Hub Riga community centre Power-Up Space, the Zuzeum Art Centre, LiveRiga agency, Meduza portal, the platforms Artdoc.Media and AfishaMira, Delfi portal, LSM, and Radio SWH.