Official Closing Ceremony
The Sign Painter (Piļsāta pi upis)
by Viestur Kairish (2020)

The Sign Painter is a tragicomedy about a young Latvian man (ANSIS) with simple dreams: to marry the free-spirited and beautiful daughter (ZISLA) of a local Jewish merchant and to pursue a career as an artist whilst supporting himself as a sign painter. But his dreams are repeatedly swept away in the tumultuous tides of serial totalitarian occupation of his home. 
He becomes the lens through which we perceive the relentless and increasingly absurd march of this brief but momentous period in history from a Latvian dictatorship to Soviet occupation to Nazi conquest to the ultimate Soviet return. Ansis struggles to remain neutral and unobtrusive with each new regime, but it is difficult to resist the shifting, opposing forces of resistance and conformity and somehow remain true to himself. 

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This event is made possible by the Honorary Consulate of the Republic of Latvia in Atlanta