A small street of just 800 metres on the outskirts of the Latvian capital, Riga.

Its various inhabitants, each with their own destiny, daily life and relationships with the neighbours, form a microcosm of the country during the time of the Awakening. The genuine interest of the film’s creators in the so-called average person earned a number of international awards, including a European Film Award for Best Documentary in 1989.

“The Crossroad Street” is the quintessence of the method employed by Latvian documentary film classic Ivars Seleckis. He has been filming Latvian people in cities and in the countryside with the same amount of intense interest since the 1960s, acting as both director and cinematographer.

Expressive characters, a sincere but slightly self-deprecating narrator and the warm, sensitive attitude of the film’s creators towards the people in it encourage viewers to empathise and take an interest in the destinies of the characters.

The film was followed by “New Times on Crossroad Street” in 1999 and “Capitalism on Crossroad Street” in 2013, thus forming a documentary cinema-novel.

Ivars Seleckis won the PÖFF Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018.