TOČKA
2020 · 34m · Latvia
Directed by Rihards Romuš
Genres: crime, dark comedy, drama
Tones: darkly comic, tense
In 1996 Riga, a shoe trader who cheated a crime boss's brother must buy back his trading spot alongside his friend Zigmārs, meeting a mysterious woman called Zinaīda.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A post-Soviet crime setup that could've been boilerplate thuggery, but Romuš treats the genre like a joke only half the room gets—the tonal whiplash between dread and absurdity is what makes it work, not some clever subversion you can point at.
The film sits comfortably in Eastern European noir tradition while respecting the specificity of '90s Riga's economic desperation; Romuš's editing rhythm treats each scene's tension like a formal problem to be solved rather than merely experienced.
That moment when the three principals collide and the entire power dynamic shifts on a single glance—Romuš commits to letting the performance and framing do all the work, no exposition, just a camera that trusts you've been paying attention.