Director: Jānis Putniņš

Vogelfrei

Four directors capture simple, yet quintessential experiences of a single individual in different periods of his life - childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age.

Eliyahu Rips: The Burning

In April 1969 Ilya (Eliyahu) Rips, then a young student of mathematics, tried to burn himself in a public square in Riga, Latvia protesting against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. He was stopped and eventually sent to a psychiatric hospital for two years. Thanks to international pressure from the mathematical community in 1972 he was allowed to emigrate to Israel. Now he is considered one of the most brilliant mathematicians in the world. At the same time, for most people familiar with his name, Rips is first of all associated with the development of the so called Bible Code – a mathematical program allegedly helping to decipher hidden messages encoded in Torah – the Five Books of Moses. He is attacked by both the scientific and religious community, yet his research continues.

Tempest

In spite of bad omen about the upcoming storm, the fisherman sets out to the sea and doesn’t return. The wife of the fisherman embarks on a journey to find the storm whisperer who could calm down the sea and return the fisherman home.