The Chronicles of Melanie

The date is the fourteenth of June 1941. Latvia is under Soviet occupation. That night the authorities enter a house without warning. The house belongs to Melanie and her husband Alexander. They are told to leave everything behind and go. On the same day more than fifteen thousand Latvians are rounded up. Melanie and her son are deported to Siberia. Alexander is separated from them. In exile there is cold, there is hunger and there is cruelty. The woman tries to stay on her feet. The one thing she holds to is the letters she writes to her husband. Writing them is what puts her back together. Inside them is the hope of a free Latvia. The expectation of a better tomorrow is there too. The film moves through those letters. Sabine Timoteo and Ivars Krasts appear in the hundred and twenty four minute film, a Latvian, Finnish and Czech co-production Viestur Kairish finished in 2016.