Operfilm Baņuta

A hundred years after the premiere of Alfrēds Kalniņš’ first Latvian opera *Baņuta* in 1920, the opera film *Baņuta* has been created – an international project that combines opera, musical performances, the conditionality of stage art, and contemporary performativity. Director Franziska Kronfoth, composer Jēkabs Nīmanis, and dramaturg Evarts Melnalksnis, together with Latvian artists – actors from the theatre troupe KVADRIFRONS and soloists Laura Grecka, Armands Siliņš-Bergmanis, and Sniedze Kaņepe – and the Berlin musical theatre collective “Hauen und Stechen,” interpret the dramatic message without sentimentality, playing with time and fragmenting space. The trauma and violence of war and personal relationships is a significant leitmotif – Baņuta takes part in partisan battles, carrying with her the collective experience of women who suffered through the wars in 20th-century Eastern Europe. However, by blending genre boundaries, a paradoxical sense of humor flows into the tragedy, while characters stuck deep in the centuries attempt to break the fourth wall.

Cinematographer Toms Šķēle, editor Ieva Stade, producers Marta Kontiņa and Elizabete Palasiosa (Story Hub), and Sansusī.

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