Film "Ulya"

The film “Ulya” is a visually and emotionally powerful story about identity, growing up, and the search for belonging. It is set in Latvia in the late 1960s. Ulya is a teenage Old Believer whose height is approaching two meters. When her class photo lands in the hands of basketball coaches, Ulya is taken to Riga to join a famous basketball team. Struggling with her height and identity, she trains hard, but soon realizes that she must make one of the most important choices of her life: hide herself or become the best female basketball player in the world.

The idea for director Viesturs Kairišs’s film “Ulya” came from actor Kārlis Arnolds Avots, who also plays the lead role. Based on the biography of the legendary Latvian basketball player Uļjana Semjonova, the film had its world premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.