Rīga Festival
Rīga turns 815 this year, and as each year the city will be teeming with action for everyone who likes sports, music, and movies.
(Organizers and City Council officials at a presser dedicated to the festival.)
This year the city festival will be held under the auspices of cinema–suitable for a city where the first film screening took place just months after the Lumière brothers surprised the world with their new invention.
Here's the short program of the major event taking place August 12 - 14 in the Latvian capital. If you have trouble locating a particular event--don't worry, people working in festival tents speak English.
Baiba Šmite, Culture director at the Rīga City Council, said foreign guests will be especially delighted in witnessing guest performances by the Czech „Long Vehicle Circus” at Vērmane garden on August 13 at 1 p.m. as well as the concert of the Taipei Percussion Orchestra in Spīķeri on August 13 at 3 p.m.
What is a foreign cinema lover to do during the Rīga Festival?
"Foreign guests are welcome to head to the Film Museum, take a map that shows all the places in which Rīga has performed as an actress, in films made by several countries–not only Latvians have filmed Rīga, we know that many Russian, Japanese, Indian [directors have shot movies in Rīga]," movie critic Daira Āboliņa told LSM.
"Take the map and go through the city, see how Rīga was able to look like Prague, Paris, or a Russian or Japanese city or metropolis. It's an intrigue that doesn't require knowing the language," she said.
The Rīga Film Museum this weekend is open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. It's open on Sunday too.
Sansusī
This year marks the third anniversary of the Sansusī light-hearted classical music event, held under the clear sky over the weekend. It takes place from August 12, 5 p.m. to late at night of August 14.
If you're interested at all in classical music you'll be delighted to hear Latvian artists at a place 150 km away from Rīga and to enjoy 'classical music and chill' in a pleasant, remote place.
Tickets are just €30 for the three days
A festival of music and food in Sigulda
While literature is usually hailed as the distant cousin of music, it seems that for the organizers of the Sigulda Sound and Taste Fetsival the science of gastronomy has a direct link to the more elusive art of music.
The festival, held on August 13, features music by several Latvian and foreign artists like Latvian Voices and Rupa & the April Fishes, alongside the WILD ON THE PLATE program sure to tickle your tastebuds just like the music tickles your ears.
