Latvia made Oscar historical past in 2025 when Gints Zilbalodis To move gained the award for Greatest Animated Characteristic Movie. Two years later, the nation chosen a really completely different movie to characterize it on the 2027 Oscars. The Baltic nation selected Oulia by director Viesturs Kairišs (January), which stars promising Latvian actor Kārlis Arnolds Avots and had its world premiere at Cannes within the Un Sure Regard part, as a contender for the Academy Award for Greatest Worldwide Characteristic Movie.
Impressed by the lifetime of legendary Latvian basketball participant Uljana Semjonova, double Olympic champion and triple world champion, the black and white drawing Oulia follows its protagonist from an remoted rural group of Outdated Believers into the fiercely aggressive world {of professional} basketball. There, she should cope with each the eye attracted by her extraordinary dimension and the calls for of elite sport.
Semjonova ended up profitable the Soviet Union nationwide championship and the European Champions Cup 15 instances every, Olympic gold with the USSR in 1976 and 1980, and she or he grew to become the primary non-American girl to enter the Basketball Corridor of Fame.
Friday, Oulia will open the thirtieth version of the Tallinn Darkish Nights Movie Competition (PÖFF). As a co-production between Latvia, Poland, Estonia and Lithuania, it is usually a logo of the rise of Baltic cinema on the world stage. “Oulia is an excellent instance of what the Baltic movie industries can obtain by working collectively and with companions past our area,” mentioned Triin Tramberg, inventive director of PÖFF. “Our international locations could also be small, however we now have a wealth of tales and artistic skills. Co-productions carry these strengths collectively, assist bold movies attain audiences around the globe and provides our filmmakers a stronger worldwide presence.
Avots wrote the screenplay with Livia Ulman and Andris Feldmanis. Wojciech Staroń is the cinematographer, with modifying by Armands Zacs. B-Rated Worldwide is dealing with gross sales of Ulya, produced by Ego Media in Latvia, Allfilm in Estonia, Staroń Movie in Poland and Tremora in Lithuania. New Mountain Movies has acquired Oulia for North America.
director Viesturs Kairišs (proper) with star Kārlis Arnolds Avots on the set of “Ulya”
Latvia, which has a inhabitants of about 1.8 million, akin to West Virginia, has already despatched two different Kairiš movies to the Oscars: his 2022 movie Januarythe story of an aspiring filmmaker in search of to search out himself in opposition to the backdrop of Latvia’s independence, and his 2017 movie The Chronicles of Melaniebased mostly on the real-life story of a girl who, alongside together with her son, was despatched to a labor camp in Siberia within the Nineteen Forties after the Soviet occupation of Latvia.
Kairish spoke about it THR about Ouliabringing to life the inside world of a legendary athlete and the way the movie grew to become a blockbuster in Latvia.
The filmmaker and Avots have already labored collectively on January. And Kairišs knew that the star was planning to write down a play about Semjonova and play the lead position in it. “I heard from Kārlis for some time that her dream was to play Uljana Semjonova,” the director mentioned. THR. When the star informed one other creator about his concept: “I spotted, wow, this can be a film. This isn’t a play.”
Kairišs didn’t have his eyes set on a historic mission. “I used to be a bit of uninterested in making movies associated to Latvian historical past,” he remembers. “I wasn’t actually occupied with doing one thing about sports activities or something. However I heard the story of a large woman residing within the deep countryside after which arriving in Riga, with the coaches of the time taking her. And I used to be very touched by that starting. I instantly had this primary picture in my head of a distant surroundings the place a wierd large woman lives, and folks all of the sudden begin in search of her.”
Having a person play girls’s basketball legend wasn’t one thing he dwelled on. “It was a package deal. Kārlis performs Ulya,” says Kairišs. “For me, it was instantly good. I needed to do it. However after we have been in search of cash from co-producers, fairly often individuals have been nervous about what it could appear to be and if it could work. [seem like] a caricature or one thing like that. However I at all times mentioned it sounded good. It is a movie about Ulya, and it is not my concept. And I am completely not occupied with a, to illustrate, “regular” or conventional movie.
‘Oulia’
Courtesy of the Cannes Movie Competition
The supply mentioned THR earlier this 12 months that, for him, Oulia it was like a narrative just like that of Werner Herzog The enigma of Kaspar Hauser. And his director had the identical intuition. “My first impulse was to suppose that this seems to be a bit like a Werner Herzog movie a few large,” he shares.
When requested about different influences, the director mentions that he instructed watching, with cinematographer Staroń, the psychological drama by Ingmar Bergman Character. “It’s in all probability an affect, or an affect on the aesthetic,” admits Kairišs.
However the bodily gaze and the actions have been above all decisive in diving contained in the particular person on the coronary heart of the movie. “My first main activity for myself and the inventive staff was the right way to get into his thoughts,” says the filmmaker. THR. “From the start, I needed to point out the movie from his insides. In fact, there are numerous goal issues, however I nonetheless discovered it essential to point out the invisible world of this human.”
Because the supply mentioned THR Earlier this 12 months, Semjonova was one in every of his neighbors in Riga, the capital of Latvia. They developed a bond and she or he trusted the staff behind the movie. The top of Oulia presents a logo of this connection: a photograph of the athlete who died in January with Avots.
Specializing in a particular particular person, their challenges and their story helped make the movie common, believes the filmmaker. “Whereas we have been attempting to get inside his head and make a really subjective movie, it additionally grew to become a movie about all of us – everybody who can determine with an inside monster that we stock inside us,” presents Kairišs. “Everybody has one thing that you just need to disguise that meets all of the requirements that the trendy world calls for of you. A technique or one other you are killing your sweetheart, in all probability your true authenticity, so the movie could be very common.”
director Viesturs Kairišs (proper) with cinematographer Wojciech Staroń on the set of “Ulya”
What does the director consider Oulia characterize Latvia within the worldwide Oscar race? “That is my third time,” he emphasizes. “You go to those Oscars on a small finances in Latvia, however the response to the movie on the screenings has at all times been unimaginable. And [premiering at] the Cannes Movie Competition was a dream for me.
Kairišs additionally highlights field workplace success Oulia grew to become my homecoming. “In Latvia, it’s an actual blockbuster,” reaching round 105,000 admissions since its launch originally of the 12 months, he says. This makes Oulia essentially the most profitable Latvian movie within the nation’s cinemas in 2026, placing it forward of Hollywood blockbusters equivalent to The Odyssey And Minions & Monsters. It’s presently the second most profitable movie of the 12 months 2026 in Latvian cinemas, simply behind Spider-Man: A Complete New Day. Based on its director: “It’s an unimaginable success for a black and white artwork home movie. »