The award-winning series that aims to make Baltic fictions fashionable (and that fans of 'Kleo' will like)

BarcelonaAs the main window for European television fiction, Filmin brings audiences small gems that would have a difficult fit on more generalist and commercial platforms. This is the case of Soviet jeans, the Catalan streaming service's big premiere this February, a Latvian comedy-drama set in the Cold War years that arrives with the backing of having won the audience award at the main European series festival, Series Mania. It is not the only award it took home in its passage through the contest: its protagonist, Karlis Arnolds Avots, won the award for best actor in the International Panorama category.

Set in Latvia in 1979, 12 years before the country left communism behind, the series follows Renars, a young man who makes a living designing costumes for plays but who makes extra money smuggling products from the western corner, such as jeans and records. This activity makes him a target of the KGB, who let him continue trafficking as long as he works as an informant for them. When Renars angers the wrong person, he will end up admitted to a psychiatric center for political reasons. Once there, a new adventure will begin: with the complicity of the center and the help of other inmates, he will dedicate himself to counterfeiting jeans of the American brand Levi's. The operation will end up turning Renars into a legend of the resistance.

Soviet jeans moves between comedy and drama and points out the absurdity of the behaviour of communist officers. One of its main themes is the romantic relationship between Renars and a Finnish theatre director, Tina, who travels to Riga invited by the Latvian communist government. The critical success of the first season has led the series to prepare for its return. According to the report, Deadline, the new episodes will be set a decade after the events of the first installment. The plot of two episodes of the new season will be set on both sides of Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall, which took place in 1989. The American media also points out that the love story between Renars and Tina will continue to be part of the backbone of the series.

"Listening to music or wearing jeans were small acts to challenge the big system. We wanted to be faithful to the events and the atrocities of the regime, but to delve deeper into interpersonal relationships and the will to survive and improve their lives," explains the co-creator of Soviet jeans, Bulgarian Teodora Markova, on the tone of the series. For her part, Veronika Kovacova, representative of Beta Films, the production company that has the rights to the series, points out that one of the points in favor of Soviet jeans is to show Soviet reality in a completely different tone than other productions set in the same period. "The series explores the concept of freedom in an ironic way, offering a new perspective and a timeless view of the realities of the Cold War. It really stands out from other fictions set in the region," he says.

An industry that is making headway

Soviet jeans is the spearhead of the Baltic audiovisual industry, which is seeking its place on the international scene. This year, the Berlinale Series Market, which selects potentially interesting series for the market, has chosen Estonian My dear mother, a co-production with Ukraine. Despite being the only Baltic representation –this year's selection was made up of 17 fictions, three of them Spanish–, it is proof that something is beginning to move in an audiovisual industry that until now was almost unknown beyond its borders. The co-creators of Soviet jeans, Staņislavs Tokalovs and Teodora Markova, are already preparing what could be one of the most important series in this industry: The last divorce of communism, which will be about a couple who in the late 1980s fake a divorce in order to keep their flat in Riga. The problem is that they still love each other.