This film, The Family (Latvian: Ģimene), looks at the Brukna commune, or family, which helps addicts recover with hard work and lots of prayer. They spend their days restoring a church and offer a look at their past lives, which they've escaped for a moment.
"[The inhabitants of the commune] are united, first of all, by an environment where there are no mobile phones, where there's a lot of real, physical work and many challenges that come with it. Secondly, there's prayer and the desire to believe in oneself. Furthermore, they all reside there on their own accord.
"They are also united by a nakedness of a sort, as, when you live in such conditions, you eventually must encounter yourself and the shadowy nooks of your soul. The goal is to undergo physical but also spiritual recovery," says director Varis Piņķis in an interview with LSM.
Ģimene, Latvia, 26 min, 2017. Director: Varis Piņķis.
