The Cinematheque

Latvia

A lavish, big-canvas historical epic from Latvian writer-director Aigars Grauba (whose Dream Team 1935 screened here in EUFF 2013), The Pagan King was a box-office behemoth for the Baltic state, as well as one if its priciest productions. Co-written with British novelist and screenwriter Max Kinnings, Grauba’s medieval blockbuster, based on the popular ​“Namejs Ring” legend, is set in 13th-century Semigallia during the Northern Crusades. There, the last pagan stronghold is being insidiously undone by the nefarious actions of Max von Buxhoeveden (Dunkirk​’s James Bloor), a crusader vying for the heirless throne. When the king, on his deathbed, unexpectedly bestows power to his nephew Namejs (Edvin Endre), learned in the ways of pagan theology, it’s incumbent on the new, inexperienced monarch to mobilize his people for impending war.