Latvian Oscar submission Ulya sells in 11 territories before Tallinn

By Tom Whitfield

Latvia’s Best International Feature Film submission “Ulya” has closed rights in 11 territories before its planned opening of the 30th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.

Variety reports the following international deals:

• North America: New Mountain Films
• France: Destiny
• Italy: Invisible Carpet
• Slovakia: ASFK
• Former Yugoslavia: Five Star Distribution
• Estonia: Hea Film
• Lithuania: GPI
• MENA: Teleview
• Finland: Cinema Orion
• Poland: 1989
• Brazil: Belas Arte

Variety describes “Ulya” as a black-and-white film directed by Viesturs Kairišs. Ego Media (LV), Allfilm (EE), Staroń Film (PL) and Tremora (LT) produced it; B-Rated International handles international sales. The film premiered in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section.

Kairišs told Variety why he resisted a conventional sports biopic:

“I don’t think I could ever make a nice, typical biopic. My interest lies in arthouse films. I wasn’t really thinking about sports either. I wanted to tell a Werner Herzog-esque story about a giant girl living in the countryside,” Kairišs told Variety.

Variety reports that the film draws on the life of legendary basketball player Ulyana Semjonova, born in 1952. She stood seven feet tall and was known for her size, which also made her somewhat reclusive.

To enter that private perspective, Kairišs said:

“I’ve been wondering how to get into her head. I wanted it to be very, very subjective. To stick to her point of view, we used what we called ‘crazy cameras’ and slightly out-of-focus shots.”

He described the search for Semjonova’s inner perspective as “a very concrete task.”

The project came from lead actor Kārlis Arnolds Avots’s long-held ambition, not Kairišs.

“When I became the artistic director of the Dailes Theatre, I was looking for actors and he was outstanding. During our first meeting, when I asked him to join our ensemble, he said: ‘You know, I would like to play Ulyana Semjonova.’ Then I forgot all about it,” recalled Kairišs.

Kairišs added:

“In theatre, it’s not unusual for men to play women. It goes back to Shakespearean times. A few years later, he played in my film ‘January’. At one point, while I was resting, I heard Kārlis talking to our DP, explaining this idea to him again. That’s when I realized: It’s a film!”

Other collaborators still wanted a standard biopic, Kairišs said:

“Everyone wanted us to make a standard biopic. I understand it. It could be a good film, but it wouldn’t be my film. We set out to make a film about a girl and we just had to believe in it.”

Variety reports that Semjonova eventually gave the project her blessing. A photograph of Semjonova with Avots, added at the end of the film, supports that account. She died in January 2026.

“She trusted us. It must have been strange to have us come over and say: ‘And a boy will be playing you.’ But it quickly became clear why it made sense,” said Kairišs.

In the Variety interview, Kairišs said he had seen Avots the day before:

“I actually saw Kārlis yesterday. He’s been filming [the Viking series] ‘Bloodaxe,’ so he has a long beard and he’s really big right now. But he always felt close to her somehow. He knew how it felt to be treated as a ‘giant’.”

The report does not date that exchange, so “yesterday” remains relative to the interview.

Kairišs said “Ulya” had connected with all kinds of viewers, regardless of their size:

“Everyone is struggling with something they want to hide, but it’s probably the best part of who they are,” he said.

His claim about reception was broader still:

“We had incredible reactions everywhere in Latvia. This film is a blockbuster – we’re already the second most-watched film in history.”

“It was the same at Cannes, Rome and Los Angeles. None of my previous films have received this kind of response.”

“Even my daughter said to me: ‘It’s about me, too.’ We touched upon something that’s very modern and very universal.”

He connected that response to social pressure:

“There’s so much pressure today to look the same and like the same things. We live in times that try to kill all the difference.”

“Everyone struggles with their identity or feels like a ‘freak’. We just have to learn to trust this freak and embrace it as the best thing about us, rather than trying to get rid of it.”

What does the sales momentum change for audiences?

The practical change is potential access, not yet a release schedule. Eleven rights deals mean distributors have committed before Tallinn, potentially bringing the film to audiences beyond the festival circuit.

Variety names no release dates, ticket prices, screen counts or revenue figures. It also supplies no attendance total for the claim that “Ulya” is already Latvia’s second most-watched film. Kairišs’s “blockbuster” description therefore remains his assessment of audience response, not a verified box-office result.

The next test is whether those buyers set release dates and whether reported audience figures confirm the Latvian claim. Until then, the concrete achievement is 11 pre-Tallinn deals; the scale of the claimed blockbuster remains unmeasured.