OLEG
O.V. Russian, Polish, Latvian, English, Flemish and French subtitled in Spanish and English
Slavery still exists, only it now operates in the underworld of illegal labour mafias. Latvian butcher Oleg travels to Brussels in search of a better future. When he is fired from his job because of a strange incident, a Polish "businessman" offers him a job that includes a house, food and even a permanent passport. Too good to be true, he ends up entangled in a network of people trafficking from which he can only get out with cement shoes.
Direction: Juris Kursietis
Cinematography: Bogumil Godfrejow
Editing: Matyas Veress
Sound: Vytis Puronas
Cast: Valentin Novopolskij, Dawid Ogrodnik, Anna Prochniak, Adam Szyszkowski, Guna Zarina
Production: Alise Gelze, Aija Berzina
Production Company: Tasse Film, Iota Production, In Script, Arizona Productions
Juris Kursietis
Juris Kursietis (1983) worked for six years on Latvian national television as an international journalist. After a Master’s degree in cinema from the Northern Media School in the United Kingdom, he became an assistant director on a number of Latvian movies. He directed his first feature-length film Modris, between 2012 and 2013. In 2014, the film was selected for Toronto, San Sebastian New Directors (Special Jury prize), Warsaw, Cottbus, Thessaloniki, Leeds, Goa, Tbilisi (Best Director), Riga (Best First Film and Best Actress in a supporting role), FesbioFest, Bergamo, Guadalajara, Chicago, Vilnius, Fajr, Brussels, ArtFilmFest, Kinoshock (Best Director), Helsinki, CinEast, Lübeck, Santa Barbara, Prishtina and Busan. Oleg, his second film, was pitched at the ARCS Coproduction Village in 2016 and the first images were shown at the Karlovy Vary work-in-progress in 2018. The film was selected for the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes, 2019.