Easy to be young? First Student Short Film Festival to Reveal the Unique Styles of Young Baltic and Nordic Directors
From March 12 to 14, Riga will host the first international student short film festival, “Easy to be young?”, taking place at the cinema “Splendid Palace” and the National Film School of the Latvian Academy of Culture (LAC). The festival aims to become an ambitious platform for the voices of young Baltic and Nordic talents, offering viewers a bold and unprecedented cinematic experience.
Dāvis Sīmanis, Rector of the Latvian Academy of Culture, states: “The LAC National Film School has long deserved a strong international film festival that would not only showcase our students' work to a wider audience but also identify the contemporary trends represented by young filmmakers worldwide. Currently, our focus is on the Baltic and Nordic region, but in the future, we plan to expand the festival's geography, solidifying its place in the international circuit and thereby promoting the development of the entire Latvian film industry.”
The formal opening of the festival will take place on March 12 at the LAC National Film School, launching a three-day program designed as a meeting point and a place for the exchange of ideas among future film professionals. In response to the growing popularity of the National Film School and the need for an international showcase of student work, the festival “Easy to be young?”, unlike other industry events, is entirely dedicated to student creativity. This allows the audience to gain a direct insight into the creative styles and current themes of the new generation of authors.
“A student film festival is an excellent platform for training and understanding the significance of festivals in the context of modern European cinema,” emphasizes the festival’s creative director, filmmaker Jānis Ābele. “Latvian filmmakers must learn during their student years that film festivals are not just celebrations but a part of the job, ensuring our films are no longer an exotic rarity in the international space.”
The festival title, “Easy to be young?”, serves as a symbolic question to be explored by students from Baltic and Nordic (NordFilm network) film schools. The works included in the program play with the search for generational identity and the worldview of today's young authors, offering both harsh realism and visual experimentation.
International Scope and New Benchmarks
Over three days, the festival will offer an international program highlighting the most brilliant student works from the Northern European region. Viewers will have a unique opportunity to see films that have already gained recognition at major foreign festivals, including the short film “Whatever City” by Norwegian director Tobias Klemeyer Smith and the futuristic work “Memory Merchant” by Estonian director Adrian Breza.
The festival program includes three competition screenings, where the best student short films from the region will compete, covering a wide range of genres—from a provocative documentary study on vigilante "pedophile hunters" in Norway to visual poems from Iceland and sharply directed Estonian satires. Local talents are also prominently featured: alongside works already traveling to significant world festivals, viewers will be among the first to evaluate brand-new short films by Latvian authors.
In addition to contemporary explorations, a retrospective screening created by Kristaps Opincāns and Valdis Eglītis will be offered, confronting works from a time when film studies were a stably funded industrial forge with the independence era, during which they transformed into selfless artistic self-expression. The full festival program will be announced in February.
Masterclasses and Exchange of Experience
One of the most prominent figures of the festival will be Estonian director Anna Hints, whose film Smoke Sauna Sisterhood won the European Film Academy Award. Hints will lead a masterclass open to all film enthusiasts, providing unique insights into the collaboration between director and producer. Experience will also be shared by directors Karolis Kaupinis (Lithuania) and Lauris Ābele (Latvia), whose film Dog of God, co-created with his brother Raitis Ābele, was nominated for two European Film Academy Awards at the end of last year.
The culmination of the festival will be the awards ceremony, where the authors of the best films will be honored with artist-created awards and receive financial support for future creative projects.
Practical Information
Festival films and competition screenings can be viewed at the cinema “Splendid Palace”; tickets will be available at the cinema box office and on splendidpalace.lv. Meanwhile, the educational program and professional masterclasses will take place at the LAC National Film School—information regarding registration and ticket purchasing will be available on lka.edu.lv.
The full festival program, list of participants, and all the latest updates will soon be published on the LAC website lka.edu.lv. We also invite you to follow the festival news on the National Film School’s Instagram account @filmu_skola.
Additional Information:
Karīna Kolendo
Festival Producer
karina.kolendo@lka.edu.lv