Synopsis

Dziga Vertov himself regarded “life caught in the act”, “life as it is” as the ultimate goal of the documentary. He and his kinoki used every means, even hidden cameras, and no one got mad because the cinematograph was a sensation people wanted to be part of.

Almost 100 years later, the two young directors Ivars Zviedris and Inese Kļava take their camera to the moorlands of Kemeri near Riga to explore the life of a hillbilly named Inta. This rustic eccentric with the impressive voice may not own a TV set, but she knows the rules of mass media (including the nuances separating docu-soap and reality show) only too well, especially concerning her worth and rights with regard to the “paparazzi”. She takes command from the start, showering directors, cameramen and producers with curses whose violence makes ordinary mortals blush. Inta says things like “You’re shitting into my soul, you fucking bastard, with your damned camera!” and is not averse to taking up a metal stick to “smash Ivar’s head” or hand him to the “pederasts”.

She won’t accept money, but those who “get rich on her poverty” ought to pay nonetheless. Later she’ll cry… while the film has long since become a tragicomic relationship movie, like a meta-commentary about the “documentarian’s” existence in the age of radical moral abandonment.
– Barbara Wurm, DOK Leipzig

The Latvian ”Documentarian” by Inese Klava and Ivars Zviedris is of course a must for all who work with documentaries, it has humour and a fantastic character, who loves and hates to be filmed at the same time as she is building a friendship with the cameraman/ director who comes to see her.
– Tue Steen Müller, Filmkommentaren.dk