Ābols Upē

This film is about a small world found in the heart of Riga, and right in the middle of the Daugava River – Zaķusala (Rabbit Island) – a place that has preserved an ambience of another century. Janka lives on Zaķusala and has to take a ferry to his work at the shipyard. He meets Anita and a relationship blossoms, but then Anita suddenly disappears from the city, and from Janka’s life… The film An Apple in the River has entered the Latvian cultural cannon as a peculiarity in Latvia’s cinematic history – a dramatic film shot in an authentic environment and with techniques usually reserved for documentaries; the filmmakers disturbed the flow of real-life events as little as possible – mostly provoking, rather than scripting them. There was no written dialog in the screenplay, so the acting was largely based on improvisation; the filmmakers’ previous experience was only in documentary film, and they turned to the dramatic genre only later on. As a result, An Apple in the River is a true and flawless portrayal of an era, and has become an example of cinematic avant-garde for its time.