ArtDoc & ProArt
06.03. – 08.03.2026
The Artdoc&Proart program at IDFF Artdocfest/Riga is a unique platform that brings together the worlds of documentary cinema and contemporary art, creating a space for experimentation, bold explorations, and new forms of expression. The films in this program challenge traditional documentary formats and seek innovative ways to depict reality, transcending the boundaries between cinema, performance, visual art, and philosophy.
Two Latvian films stand out in the diverse program for 2026: “Akmens un es” (Stone and I) about one of Latvia’s most renowned sculptors, Ojārs Feldbergs, his relationship with stone in his life and creative work, and “Zalktis”, about poet Džūda Montagjū’s summer trip through Latvia and Lithuania. Interestingly, both films were made by foreign directors, who are planning to attend the screenings.
🎟️ Free with prior registration.
🗣️ All films are in their original language with English subtitles. Latvian language audio is available in headphones.
March 6, from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Art is Play (This Is a Film About Hanoch Piven), 2026.
A short film about the life, works, and failures of Hanoch Piven, an internationally acclaimed artist who creates funny portraits of people from everyday objects. Through his playful worldview, Piven reminds us how to find faces in unexpected places, how to practice empathy, and above all – how to stop taking yourself too damn seriously!
🔸 Find more here.
Totality, 2025.
A group of people, mostly women, witness a total eclipse of the sun on the roof of a former lodge of the Odds Fellows in Texas, a secret society that was the forerunner of the syndicate a women’s lodge in the 19th century under the name of the Rebekahs.
🔸 Find more here.
Passion According to Agnieszka, 2025.
In the semi-darkness of the editing room, Agnieszka Bojanowska, one of the most outstanding editors in Polish cinema, takes on another creative challenge. At her side, there is Bogdan Dziworski, an image master and her long-time artistic partner. Together, they have created films that have gone down in the history of documentary cinema. The camera takes a peek behind the scenes of their work, observing not only the technique but also the tender bond between the two artists. It is a meeting of strong personalities, where agreement is not always easy to reach. Although they are aware of the passing of time, their project is not a farewell but a tribute to cinema and a passion for creation.
🔸 Find more here.
March 7, 6:00 p.m.
Across the border. The images of Mimmo and Francesco Jodice, 2025.
It often happens, in art as in the entertainment world, that a craft is passed down from father to son, but it is rare for two generations to achieve the same level of excellence. In the case of Mimmo and Francesco Jodice, however, talent has not been spared. Mimmo is one of the great names in the history of Italian photography. An avant-garde artist since the 1960s, he has been a tireless protagonist in the cultural debate that led to the international success of Italian photography. Francesco’s artistic research, on the other hand, addresses the changes in the contemporary social landscape in relation to urban anthropology, proposing a practice of art as a civic poetic. For the first time, Mimmo and Francesco, father and son, two generations of contemporary Italian photography, dialogue and exchange views on photography, the city, art’s social commitment, and their gaze on a world undergoing profound transformation. Through the anomaly of their corneas, they will allow us to perceive reality with a lateral gaze, going beyond the boundary.
🔸 Find more here.
March 7, 7:30 p.m.
Velvet Vision – The Story of James Bidgood (and the Making of Pink Narcissus), 2025.
The story of photographer/director James Bidgood whose 1960’s beefcake photographs were unlike any others. Depicting elaborate fantasy scenarios drenched in lush color they transcended the genre. His film “Pink Narcissus” was initially credited to ‘Anonymous’ on its 1971 release date shrouding it in mystery. Falsely attributed to Kenneth Anger and Andy Warhol, among others, it wasn’t until almost twenty years later that it was revealed to be Jim’s work. “Velvet Vision” follows the process of Jim trying to shoot again after a forty-year hiatus while also delving into his past as window dresser, drag artist and costume designer. Jim’s struggles are a universal story; an outsider pursuing artistic endeavors to cope with their ostracization from society. His fantasy life became a mechanism to keep him tethered to reality as he traversed the fine line between genius and insanity.
🔸 Find more here.
March 8, 6:00 p.m.
Towards White, 2024.
The film is a part of the artistic research “Intimacy as a form of resilience against systemic oppression”. The film has been inspired by the photography series of the Romanian visual artist Geta Brătescu. Through this project, the filmmaker aims to reclaim and subvert the experiences of harassment she encountered in her previous work, where she developed a film about the refugee crisis coming from Syria, while she was 21 years old.
🔸 Find more here.
Johannes Rass – Aktion Bos Taurus, 2024.
This documentary offers an intimate insight into the actionist process of Johannes Rass’s animal sculptures. It begins with the slaughter and butchering of a bull at the farm of a Lower Austrian farmer and butcher. In Hermann Nitsch’s former studio space in Prinzendorf a. d. Zaya, Rass prepares the individual pieces of the bull, which are then reassembled into their original animal shape. The resulting bull sculpture is captured photographically and consumed by the guests in a final act – as part of the Nitsch Foundation’s “Whitsun Festival 2024”. One month after the action in Prinzendorf, the exhibition WUNDERKAMMER opens at the Künstlerhaus Wien, where, among other works, Rass presents photographs of the bull sculpture in real size. Urbaniak expands the documentation of Aktion Bos Taurus with interviews from the artist, Rita Nitsch, Günther Oberhollenzer, and the butcher Oliver Geißbüchler. Through the action — the artistic process, which reveals proximity to Nitsch’s practice — Rass’s work, with its independent conceptual approach, raises questions about our ambivalent and alienated relationship to animal carnality.
🔸 Find more here.
March 8, 7:30 p.m.
the stone and I, 2025.
The renowned Latvian sculptor Ojārs Feldbergs recounts his artistic process and his memory of the tragic past of Latvia. Through a series of poetic vignettes this film documents his connection and relationship with sculpting.
🔸 Find more here.
Zalktis, 2025.
On the trail of the zalktis or grass snake in Latvia and Lithuania. A personal journey in the summer of 2025 by poet Jude Montague, searching for signs of her father, and his stories of Baltic heritage.
🔸 Find more here.
