Juris Podnieks

Juris Podnieks (born December 5, 1950 in Riga , Latvia , † June 23, 1992 ) was a Latvian film director and film producer .

He graduated from the well-known film school WGIK of the Soviet Union in 1975 and then worked at the Riga Film Studio , initially as a camera assistant and cameraman . In 1979 he became a director.

Podnieks' first film Wiege won an award at the Leipzig Film Festival , and in 1981 his film The Kokar Brothers won first place at the Kiev Youth Festival . In the same year a documentary film with the memories of Latvian riflemen from World War I was honored with the Latvian Komsomol Prize and at the 17th All Union Festival in Leningrad . This film made Podnieks known within the Soviet Union.

He achieved international fame thanks to the film Vai viegli būt jaunam? ( Is It Easy To Be Young? ) Published in 1986. In this, young people had their say who, on their return from a concert by the rock band Pērkons in Ogre, devastated two train compartments and were later tried for this reason. The film showed their everyday life, their thoughts and motivations and achieved high audiences in the USSR and worldwide.

During the process of disintegrating the Soviet Union, Podnieks worked with British television and gave them a firsthand look at what was happening. During his three years working with the British, Podnieks filmed a five-part documentary entitled Hello, do you hear us? . It showed unrest in Uzbekistan , survivors of the earthquake in Armenia , a workers' strike in Yaroslavl and the return of former residents to Chernobyl . The first part of this series won a Prix ​​Italia .

Podnieks later made films about the independence movement in Latvia , Lithuania and Estonia . His film To Freedom to Sing dealt with the song festivals in these countries, at which mass choirs sang popular songs for the first time, which had previously been banned by the Soviet authorities for 50 years. During the shooting of a follow-up film, Podnieks and his team were caught in a hail of bullets during the storm by Soviet special forces on the Ministry of the Interior in Riga. His long-time friend Andris Slapiņš was killed, Gvido Zvaigzne, another colleague and friend, suffered fatal injuries, and Podnieks was beaten up. The scene with the dying Slapiņš was recorded on video and shown as an appendix to To Freedom to Sing . It later served as an introduction to a revised version of the film.

Juris Podnieks died on June 23, 1992 in a diving accident .

Web links

• Juris podnieks in the Internet Movie Database (English)