Latvian Stanislavs Tokalovs’ Everything Will Be Alright was one of the six non-fiction Baltic features introduced to the EFM industry attendees during the Rough Cut Presentation. (The other Latvian production was Yuliia Hontaruk’s Company of Steel, a Latvian-Ukrainian-Slovakian co-production spearheaded by Uldis Cekulis’ VFS Films.)
Everything Will Be Alright represents Tokalovs’ first outing into the realm of non-fiction, following his two fiction features, Lovable (2022) and What Nobody Can See (2017). The project was presented by Tokalovs and producer Guntis Trekteris of Riga-based outfit Ego Media.
“I started shooting Everything Will Be Alright four years ago with the idea of creating a portrait of Latvia’s Russian-speaking community. The search for characters ended up with me selecting my family members as the main protagonists, as I felt that this was the most honest way I can address the subject,” said Tokalovs.
The documentary follows three women from Tokalovs’ family – his grandmother, who came to Latvia in 1955 at the age of 93; his mother, a former university lecturer, and his sister, who is starting her adult life by discovering love and trying to break away from her family.
“At the beginning [of the film], we try to understand the issues [affecting] each character. For my mother that is losing her job, for my grandmother it is ageing and celebrating the 9th of May [fomer Soviet Victory Day] in Latvia, and for my sister it is to become an independent person.”
“And here we are, four years later, [with] the Russian invasion of Ukraine happening for almost a year already. My grandmother is in intensive care, my sister married the first real boyfriend she had and moved to the Netherlands with him, and my mother is almost without a job as she cannot speak Latvian, and a new law has been passed [which means] you cannot teach in Russian,” he continued.
During the process, the helmer agonized over what is his film was really about, whether he “really cared about the Russian-Latvian situation” and whether his love for the closest members of his family is actually possible, in light of their radically different political views.
Tokalovs stated that the doc’s narrative focus is on the inner drama of the family as well as the tragic events unfolding around us. “It’s a personal story between the characters and I – as a director and family member,” he added.
“Only after getting acquainted with all the characters and breaking into their personal space, we move to the complicated subjects the film touches upon [such as] the 9th of May celebration, the war in Ukraine and the demolition of the Victory Monument in Riga.”
Producer Trekteris added: “We believe that we all – Latvians, Russians, Germans and other Europeans – are going through a major shift of the geopolitical landscape and our perception of it. We’ll all need to change. For some it’ll be easier, for some it’ll be harder, for some it’ll be impossible…”
The producer confirmed that the picture is completed. The team is open to share preview screeners, and seeks festivals and sales agents.
At the end of Tokalovs and Trekteris’ presentation, three excerpts were screened, dated 2019, 2021 and 2022 respectively. In the first clip, we see the director’s grandmother and mother attending the 9th of May celebrations and passer-bys paying the old lady homage with flowers. In the second, we witness police officers forbidding the two women close access to the Victory Monument. In the last one, we briefly see Tokalovs’ mother attending the celebrations alone, followed by a shot depicting the demolition of the monument’s obelisk on 25 August 2022.
