Blizzard of Souls

Blizzarrd pays stark witness to the horrors and brutality of the First World War, as seen through the eyes of an innocent 17-year-old farm-boy turned soldier. Though he is underage, and his dad, a former marksman, is too old for the army, they are both conscripted into one of Latvia’s first national battalions. The thrill of training is soon followed by reality, as shells burst around them in the endless mud. He grows up on the battlefield, fighting at the side of his father and brother, their lives are constantly in jeopardy.

What the critics say….

A naïve teenager comes of age amid the carnage of World War I’s Eastern Front in this adaptation of Aleksandrs Grins’ 1934 patriotic classic Blizzard of Souls. With its muscular direction by former documentarian, Dzintars Dreiberg, atmospheric cinematography and careful attention to period detail, this account of a troop of Latvian Riflemen fighting first for the Russian Imperial Army against invading German forces and then for an independent Latvia should appeal to WWI buffs and fans of Sam Mendes’ 1917” -Alissa Simon, Variety

“….battle scenes are rendered with stately, lengthy takes, forgoing frantic pans, quick cuts, and shaky cam. Story, not style, is key to the way the film conveys wartime chaos. The director and crew are unafraid of the picturesque, lighting scenes so they resemble old-master canvases. Battle sequences are often swathed in snow, smoke, or mist, and partly bleached of color. The breaks from battle are as sweet and plush as Latvian-American composer Lolita Ritmanis’s score” - Mark Jenkins Slant Magazine

“An aggressively stirring account of a nation painfully enduring catastrophic conflict as prelude to independence” - _Neil Young, Screen Daily _