A person’s face and eyes preserve experience better than any document or recorded memoir. Particularly if a person has experienced as much as the well-known dissident Lidija Lasmane- Doroņina. Actually, she does not even think of herself as a dissident. She received her three terms in prisons and labour camps – fourteen years in all – as punishment not for underground struggle but for daring to remain true to her principles, convictions and faith. The ideals Lidija obtained as a child – the idyllic image of Latvia as an independent country, strong family values and faith in God as a moral measuring stick for any action – not only survived two occupation regimes and their repressions, but also persevered under conditions when the humanity in the world around her seemed to have been irretrievably lost. Under any political regime, under any, even the cruellest circumstances, Lidija always helps people, even those who have never done anything for her. Her eyes are bright even today, at the age of 91, and they look at this world full of life.

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National Film Award Lielais Kristaps for the Best short documentary