Latvian filmmaker Janis Streics dies at age 89

RIGA - Latvian film director and screenwriter Janis Streics has died aged 89, LETA was told at the National Film Centre of Latvia.

According to information from enciklopedija.lv, Streics was born on September 26, 1936, in the eastern Latvian region of Latgale.

After graduating from the Latvian Conservatory (now Jazeps Vitols Latvian Academy of Music) with a stage director's diploma in 1963, he started his filmmaking career at the Riga Film Studio.

During his career, Streics made over 20 feature films, writing screenplays for nearly half of them. His 1981 comedy "A Limousine the Color of Midsummer's Eve" has been included in the Latvian Culture Canon. For his feature film "The Child of Man" Streics won the Grand Prix at the Sanremo Film Festival in Italy and the Vatican's Beato Angelico Prize. Streics also received Latvia's national film award Lielais Kristaps three times for the best film of the year and once for lifetime achievement.

Streics spent his last years in Lithuania where he turned to painting and promoted cooperation between Latvian and Lithuanian artists.