The Sign Painter (City on the River) Leeds Latvian Film Prize Nominations

October 9, 2020

Latvian – Czech - Lithuanian co-production film The Sign Painter (aka City on the River) directed by Viestur Kairish, which was released in Latvia in the beginning of this year and was very popular among local audiences, has now been appreciated also by film professionals. The film has been nominated for Latvian National Film Award "Lielais Kristaps" in all feature film categories and has 15 nominations!

On October 8th, 2020, in the press conference organized by the Union of Latvian Cinematographers, the nominees were announced. According to the jury of professionals The Sign Painter has been nominated in the following categories:
Best Feature,
Best Script (Viestur Kairish),
Best Director (Viestur Kairish),
Best Cinematography (Gints Berzinsh),
Best Set Designer (Ieva Jurjane),
Best Costume Designer (Ruta Kupla, Agnė Rimkutė - LT),
Best Makeup Artist (Beata Rjabovska),
Best Music Score (Justė Janulytė - LT, Juris Vaivods),
Best Sound (Ludvík K. Bohadlo, Robert Slezák - both CZ),
Best Editing (Gatis Belogrudovs),
Best Leading Actress (Agnese Cirule),
Best Leading Actor (Davis Suharevkis),
Best Supporting Actor (Gundars Abolins),
Best Supporting Actor (Juozas Budraitis - LT),
Best Supporting Actress (Brigita Cmuntová - CZ).

Latvian film producer Guntis Trekteris: "The film has been appreciated by the audiences; now the professionals' recognition has joined. This combination makes us very happy, especially considering the great effort and complicated process required to make the film."

The Sign Painter is a tragicomedy about a young man (Ansis - debuting Davis Suharevkis) with simple dreams: to marry the free-spirited and beautiful daughter (Zisla - Czech actress Brigita Cmuntová) of a local Jewish merchant and to pursue a career as an artist whilst supporting himself as a sign painter. But his dreams are repeatedly swept away in the tumultuous tides of serial totalitarian occupation of his home during the WWII era.

The Sign Painter is a co-production between Ego Media (LV), 8Heads Productions (CZ) and Artbox (LT) distributed internationally by Austrian sales agent EastWest Filmdistribution.