Join us for a screening of My Freedom (dir. Ilze Kunga-Melgaile, Latvia, 2023) in the Nordic & Baltic Oscar Contenders series at Scandinavia House! The series returns this year with screenings of films chosen by the Nordic & Baltic countries to compete for the Oscar nomination for the Best International Feature Film, including this year’s candidate for Latvia.
Based on historical events, My Freedom takes place in perestroika-era Latvia, a time when the winds of change are blowing. The freethinking and charismatic Alicija, a Latvian of Polish extraction, is blissfully married to Ilgvars, a conservatively minded professor of mathematics. Despite her husband’s concerns, Alicija becomes active in the anti-Soviet Popular Front, a movement still relegated to the underground. When her friends and peers encourage her to run for a seat in the Latvian Supreme Council, Alicija receives an anonymous letter threatening to upend her life and her marriage. Unsure of who to trust, she must consider the question: love or independence?
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Ilze Kunga-Melgaile has been a vital presence in the Latvian film industry since 1999, when she left her job in banking to study film and television direction in Saint Petersburg. Back in Latvia after completing her studies, she found work across Riga’s biggest studios—with the director Ivo Kalpenieks and Style Masters Studio, Film Angels Studio, Tritone, Screenvision, IB Media, LV Ekspresis, Visio and Tasse Film. My Freedom is her first feature film.