Director Herc Frank’s contribution to Latvian film art is extremely important, together with his equally talented contemporaries Uldi Braun, Aivars Freimani, Ivars Selecki and others, in the early 60s of the 20th century, he turned the course of Latvian documentary cinema in a completely different, contemporary and humane direction. Unfortunately, the rise of these talents began during the Soviet occupation, when Russian was accepted as the official language of communication in Latvia, especially in the “ideological sector”, which was considered cinema. Therefore, many films created in the second half of the 20th century, including the works of Herz Frank, were shot either only in Russian or in two languages, the presence of the Russian language being taken for granted and not translated.
Dace Bušante, head of the LNA Latvian State Film and Audio Document Archive, reveals that 44% of the 558 documentaries of the Riga Film Studio stored in the archive are in Russian, and many TV feature films were also shot in Russian, as they were intended for distribution throughout the USSR. So, in order to integrate this heritage of cinematographic culture in 21st century Latvia and make it available to the public, resources are needed for translating and subtitling films – this problem is also brought up by the Hertz Frank Centenary collection, in which the archive digitized, restored, translated and subtitled the included films with the financial support of the State Culture Capital Fund.
The anniversary collection consists of ten films that show Hertz Frank’s work from different angles, and several of them were not included in the director’s full-fledged filmography until now precisely because of the lack of translation – for example, the documentary film The joy of being (1974) about the legendary breeder Pēteris Upītis (1896–1976) and his miraculous garden in Dobele.
Also, for the first time, Latvian language subtitles have been provided for a full-length documentary film Prohibited area (1975), which also plays an important role in the creative biography of cameraman and director Juris Podnieks – in this story about teenagers in a juvenile detention center, in the Cēsi Correctional Colony, director Hercs Frank trusted the still-studying cameramen Juris Podnieks and Sergej Nikolaevs, allowing them to film independently in the colony and believing in the natural ability of young professionals to get closer to the characters of the film.
The Herz Frank Centennial Collection also includes several early works that show the first steps of the legendary documentarian – he wrote scripts for several films of his colleagues, and one of the most unusual is a short film Unsigned drawings (1963), directed by Aivars Līcis, was produced by Latvian Television. In this poetic painting, seemingly simple events on the construction site are turned into a series of graphic images that create a romantic story with the help of well-chosen music and sound – the construction of the road crane and preparation for work is filmed as a tribute by three builders to the female colleague who first appears on the construction site in a flowery dress.
Herz Frank is also the author of the script for the documentary short film by director Irina Mass TTT (1965), which tells about the already famous team seven years after its foundation. At that time, the first captain, Dzidra Karamisheva, has been the team’s second coach for two years, Raimonds Karnītis replaced Olħerta Altberga as the head coach; the film tells about all the players active at that time, but special attention is paid to a documentary insight into the 1965 European Cup, which Skaidrīte Smildziņa tells behind the scenes, – TTT fiercely competes with its regular opponent, Sofia’s Slavia (Bulgaria), proving the team’s ability to change the course of even an apparently lost game and winning the title of the best European champion team for the fifth time, but immediately after that in Georgia, with five victories in six games, they become the champions of the USSR for the sixth time in a row.
Herz Frank’s first directorial work was also made on Latvian Television – a documentary short film Salty bread (1965) was shot in 1964, from spring to autumn, and tells the story of the fishing village of Skulte in Riga district – artelė Fisherman people in different generations.
The anniversary collection includes three very different short films by Hertz Frank from the 20th century for the diversity of the spectrum. 70s-80s years, which nevertheless demonstrates one very characteristic aspect of the director’s handwriting – to observe and not interfere where a miracle is happening. Is art born there – like in a short film Awakening (1979), where the sculptor Igor Vasiliev cuts off the excess from a huge block of wood, allowing the high forehead of the film director Sergei Eisenstein to emerge – is a person born there – as in a short film The high song (1989), which without words shows love and the emergence of new life through pain and happiness… And in between is simply a calm listening to a person – Horseshoe of happiness (1985), where the old blacksmith Jānis Austrus from the Tukum district collective farm The future Meadow at home quietly doing their daily chores.
In the context of the biography of Hertz Frank, the film is very important Ebreu street (1992), which was also translated into Latvian for the first time, after the forced silence of the Soviet era, the director can finally focus on the tragic pages of his nation’s history, the crimes of the Holocaust, in the film. With a video camera on his shoulder, Frank goes for a walk in the former Riga ghetto area in the suburbs of Moscow; in search of eyewitnesses of ancient events, Herz Frank meets both people, things and memories.
The jubilee collection concludes with a very important 21st century film work – a full-length film Flashback (2002), which started from the idea of finding the little boy from the legendary short 20 years later Older than ten minutes. In the end, the film grew into a kind of summary of his whole life – in this film, Herz Frank turns the documentary camera towards himself and looks back on his entire life, from his childhood in a Jewish family in Ludza to his heart surgery in Jerusalem, dedicating the film to all his fellow cameramen with whom he was lucky enough to work. The movie Flashback has received many important awards at world festivals, and it was in the context of the release of this film that Hertz Frank was given lifetime achievement awards in three countries – also in Latvia (2001) and Israel (2004).
The 100th anniversary collection of the director Hertz Franks was prepared in close cooperation with the Latvian National Archive’s State Film Photographic Document Archive, which in turn is in honor of the old master’s anniversary in the LNA digital repository www.redzidzirdilatviju.lv has created a thematic collection – there are also other works of the director Hertz Frank, the brightest film magazines and a selection of various photographs.
