MARIA’S SILENCE History in Focus

Well-known Latvian director Dāvis Sīmanis is currently working on the feature film Maria’s Silence (Marijas klusums).

By Dita Eks Photos by Lauris Aizupietis

The film tells the story of the internationally renowned Latvian-born actress Marija Leiko (1887–1938), who rose to fame in Germany in the 1920s and starred in several films by wellknown directors. Leiko’s life was tragically cut short in Moscow in 1938, when she was killed during the Stalinist repressions together with other actors and staff from the Latvian theatre Skatuve.

Sīmanis has always been interested in the interplay between strong personalities and history as can be seen in his previous internationally acclaimed films The Year Before the War (Gads pirms kara, 2021), The Mover (Tēvs Nakts, 2018), and Exiled (Pelnu sanatorija, 2016). Maria’s Silence shows the senselessness of the repressions carried out by totalitarian regimes, and their total disregard for the individual, in essence it portrays a collec- tive unravelling of sanity. The film is also a specific historical tribute to a woman who embodies the tragic events of the 20th century. “The film was envisioned as a historical reminder, but the subject has suddenly gained urgency because of the way in which history is currently repeating itself – the brutality of the Russian regime, the concentration of power, and internal repressions. It is very disturbing that this is the right course of history in Russia’s mind, and that aggression is the only way in which to uphold the regime. It is quite alarming. Looking at historical figures, you can also draw parallels between the enforcers of Putin’s and Stalin’s regimes,” explains Sīmanis.

The film portrays the last few years of Marija Leiko’s life, from 1936 to early 1938 in Moscow. After her daughter died in childbirth, Leiko came to Moscow from Germany to take care of the baby. High-level KGB agents, “chekists”, persuade Leiko to stay in Moscow to restart her acting career. She seizes the opportunity and becomes an actress at Skatuve, the Latvian theatre in Moscow, effectively signing her death warrant. When mass operations targeting specific nationali- ties in Russia began (like Latvians, Poles, Germans, Estonians, etc.), she is shot together with 21 other employees of the Skatuve theatre.

The film also illustrates Leiko’s life through flashbacks of her work in German theatres and films. She worked with F.W. Murnau, Fritz Lang, Erwin Piscator, and Bertolt Brecht, but the high point of her career were the roles she had in several German expressionist films. Leiko left Latvia in 1907, first living in Copenha- gen, then acting in theatres in Vienna. From 1912, she worked as an actress in Berlin. After working in the theatre, she took on a series of film roles until the late 1920s. The best-known film Leiko starred in is Satan (Satanas, 1919) by the great German director F. W. Murnau. She worked extensively with Johannes Guter (or Jānis Gūters), a Latvian-born film professional working in the German film industry, and they ended up having a daughter together, Nora. Thanks to Leiko, many Latvians became part of the German intelligentsia during the Weimar Republic – the director Asja Lācis, for example, who was close to philosopher Walter Benjamin and critic Bernhard Reich, and later also directed plays at the Skatuve theatre.

The character of Marija Leiko is played by Olga Shepitskaya. Starring in other roles are Artūrs Skrastiņš, Ģirts Ķesteris, Vilis Daudziņš, Inese Kučinska, Inese Pudža, etc. The cinematographer of Maria’s Silence is Andrejs Rudzāts and the art director is Kristīne Jurjāne. The film, planned to premiere in 2024, is produced by Gints Grūbe and Inese Boka-Grūbe from Studio Mistrus Media. BF

Questions

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