CREATIVITY AND THE FILM INDUSTRY: THE CASE OF “LATVIAN FILMS FOR LATVIA’S CENTENARY”

Abstract

In this paper authors focus on the film projects created under the “Latvian Films for Latvia’s Centenary” (LV100) project competition, their thematic choice and development process. The aim of the article “Development of creative processes in the film industry in the framework of the LV100” is to find out how the thematic ideas of films under the “Latvian Films for Latvia’s Centenary” contest developed, and what important factors are reflected in this creative process? The empirical part of the work, which includes semi-structured in-depth interviews with filmmakers (N = 15), reveals that (1) film ideas have occurred either under the influence of individual factors or collective as a result of the impression of LV100 contest (2) certain film intentions have arisen as a source of inspiration from an existing cultural product (3) in the context of the creative process, nationalism can be viewed in two ways: for some directors, nationalism was not a major theme for film-making purposes, but other directors acknowledge that it had an important role in Latvian identity and self-awareness.