Latvia Selects 'Ulya' as Third Oscar Contender from Director Viesturs Kairišs
The black-and-white drama, starring Kārlis Arnolds Avots as basketball legend Uljana Semjonova, is the top-grossing Latvian film of 2026 with over 105,000 admissions.
By Jason Kovalenko ·
Latvia has selected Ulya as its entry for the best international feature film category at the 2027 Academy Awards. The choice marks the third time director Viesturs Kairišs has represented the Baltic nation in the Oscar race, following his 2022 submission January and his 2017 film The Chronicles of Melanie. The new selection arrives after Latvia made history in 2025 when Gints Zilbalodis’s Flow won the best animated feature award.
The black-and-white drama is inspired by the life of Uljana Semjonova, a two-time Olympic champion and three-time world champion in basketball. Semjonova won the Soviet Union’s national championship and the European Champions Cup 15 times each. She captured Olympic gold with the USSR in 1976 and 1980 and became the first non-U.S. woman inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. The film traces her journey from an isolated rural Old Believer community into the competitive world of professional sport, where she contends with her extraordinary height and the pressures of elite athletics.
Kārlis Arnolds Avots stars in the lead role, playing the female legend as a male actor. Avots wrote the script alongside Livia Ulman and Andris Feldmanis. The cast includes a performance that Kairišs described as a natural package, noting that co-producers occasionally raised concerns about the visual choice. The director dismissed the worry, stating the film is about Ulya and not his idea. He compared the project to a Werner Herzog film about a giant, citing the influence of Ingmar Bergman’s Persona on the aesthetic. The cinematography is by Wojciech Staroń, with editing by Armands Zacs.
The film world-premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival. It is a co-production between Latvia, Poland, Estonia, and Lithuania. Triin Tramberg, artistic director of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, praised the collaboration. She said, "Ulya is a very good example of what the Baltic film industries can achieve by working together and with partners beyond our region." The film will open the 30th edition of that festival on Friday.
Commercially, Ulya has become the most successful Latvian film in cinemas in 2026. It has reached approximately 105,000 admissions since its launch earlier this year. This total places it ahead of Hollywood releases such as The Odyssey and Minions & Monsters. It currently stands as the second most successful film of the year in Latvian theaters, behind only Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Kairišs called the result an unbelievable success for a black-and-white art house film. New Mountain Films has acquired North American distribution rights, while B-Rated International handles sales.
The production is backed by Ego Media in Latvia, Allfilm in Estonia, Staroń Film in Poland, and Tremora in Lithuania. Latvia has a population of about 1.8 million, a figure comparable to the state of West Virginia. The film’s narrative focuses on the inner world of its protagonist, aiming to show the invisible aspects of her character. The final scene includes a photo of Semjonova, who died in January, with Avots, symbolizing a personal bond they developed while she was a neighbor in Riga.
