At the upcoming IFF Rotterdam (February 1-7, 2021), The Year Before the War will celebrate world premiere in the Big Screen section – a diverse competition bridging the gap between popular, classic and art house cinema. Undoubtedly, there is a lot to compete for because the winner of the VPRO Big Screen Award gets a cash prize of €30,000 divided between the producers and the Dutch distributor.

Stylized as a silent film, The Year Before the War connects political and philosophical extremes of 1913 in a story of a young man, Pēteris Pjatkovs, who participated in the creation of a new world.

Latvian director Dāvis Sīmanis prepared this film about a Latvian mysterious adventurer in cooperation with producer Roberts Vinovskis of Locomotive Productions (Latvia) and along with co-producers Uljana Kim (Lithuania) and Radim Procházka (Czech Republic).

Two other Czech filmmakers made a significant contribution to the film – editor Anna Johnson Ryndová and the lead actor Petr Buchta (Dukla 61). Procházka finds Buchta’s cast a major success for Czech cinema. “There has not been such a great opportunity for a Czech actor since Béla Tarr cast Miroslav Krobot in The Man from London,” he said.

The Year Before the War is not the first cooperation between Sīmanis and Procházka. A few years ago, the filmmakers co-worked on a documentary D is for Division (2018) that deals with problems at the border between Europe and Russia. Like their previous work, the new one was also supported by the Czech Film Fund – this time with EUR 110 150.

You can watch the brand-new teaser HERE.