The Bog

Local title
Turbaväli
Original title
Klajumā aiz meža
Director
Reinis Kalvins
Year
2025
Festival
30th Black Nights Film Festival
Programme
Genre
Subject
Mood

This detective thriller invites you to solve the mystery of a body whose eerie face seems untouched by time.

In a small Latvian town near the forest, everyone knows everyone. The community works, hunts, and celebrates together. Then a teenage boy’s body is discovered in the bog, astonishingly well preserved.

Ādamsons, the town drunk, claims responsibility for a killing committed decades ago. Policeman Brože is shaken when he realises the body may be that of Mickey, his childhood friend who disappeared 30 years earlier. But once Ādamsons sobers up, his confession begins to fall apart. As rumours spread and the town demands revenge, Brože is forced to revisit the past – including his own role in a childhood game that ended in tragedy. Was Mickey’s death an accident, a crime or a memory distorted by guilt?

Inspired by bodies naturally preserved in peat bogs, Reinis Kalviņš builds a meditative Baltic noir around memory, responsibility, and the secrets a small community would rather keep buried. The screenplay was co-written with experienced Estonian writers Livia Ulman and Andris Feldmanis (“January”, “Estonia”).

Edvinas Pukšta

Director
Reinis Kalvins
Screenwriter
Reinis Kalvins, Livia Ulman, Andris Feldmanis
Producer
Gints Grube, Inese Boka–Grube
Co-producer
Verena Gräfe-Höft, Lisa Herbers, Aet Laigu
Cast
Kaspars Zvīgulis, Edgars Ozolins, Armands Bergis, Svetlana Stolarova, Lauris Dzelzītis
Cinematographer
Jimmy Gimferrer
Editing
Tambet Tasuja
Production Design
Anneli Arusaar, Dāvis Līcītis
Composer
John Grizinich, Kārlis Auzāns
Production
Mistrus Media
Co production
Junafilm, Meteoriit
Sound
Bela Brandes
Runtime
Language
Subtitles

Award for Best Baltic Film, grant of 5000€ from Piletilevi

Screenings

Screening140819 / Turbaväli
SubtitlesEnglish
Q&A guestsReinis Kalvins (Director, Screenwriter)
Q&A duration
Screening duration
Trailer