Latvia – Splendid Palace (Riga)

Splendid Place is located in the historical center of Riga. It is a unique national architectural monument founded in 1923. Historically, it is the first building in Riga and the Baltic States specially built to host a cinema. After its restoration in 2010, cinema has renewed its visual gloss and acquired advanced technical solutions. Excellent acoustic qualities of its halls make Splendid Palace attractive for different multimedia projects, concerts and live screenings of opera.

A fact worth mentioning is that there are more than 560 seats in the Great Hall, so it’s not only the most luxurious cinema in Northern Europe but probably the largest art-house cinema in this part of the world. The small hall of the cinema has 206 seats.

The programme of cinema Splendid Palace consists of quality author cinema and art-house films from Europe and other regions that have gained attention at international film festivals. The cinema also promotes the Latvian national cinema both at national and international level. The cinema is the place where national film premiers take place.

We make segmented content offers for different audience groups, paying particular attention to attract young audiences, working with different age groups. Among all our specials, we organise:

special screenings with the film team introduction before the screening or other activities – one of our main purposes is to celebrate cinema and to make every film screening a special event with an added value – so that each and every one of our viewers would look forward to it;
classic film screening – in order to diversify our programme, we’ve been remastering and screening classic films, thus allowing modern filmgoers to re-engage with cherished pieces of art that are still standing the test of time
35 mm screenings – we still have the 35mm projector ready to be put to work if needed, while digitalization and advanced technical solutions have opened up new opportunities for us;
daily screenings for school pupils – in cooperation with Ministry of Culture and the project „Latvian School Bag”. The aim is to provide an opportunity for all school-age children and youth (1st to 12th grades including vocational programs) to experience Latvia, to explore its values, culture and relationships through dynamic and meaningful activities thus strengthening sense of belonging and civic identity;
cinema lectures for young people – in cooperation with youth organization “Jest”. For the last 4 years, Splendid Palace’s distinct pride is a new project for school pupils about national films and different film genres. We involve in this project the leading Latvian film experts and young cinema enthusiasts, who are willing to communicate and talk about their passion for cinema with people of their own age.
student cinemaFest – an initiative to which all the most important universities of Baltics working with audio-visual content have responded. The student cinemaFEST was organized 2 times – 2018 and 2019 and it is planned to be a “non-stop” cinema night for next years as well, during which there will be a chance to see the bachelor and master theses prepared by this year’s most talented young people;
screenings with Instagram influencers – brand new initiative in cooperation with two Instagram bloggers;
tour in the cinema “Splendid Palace”- brand new innovative for tourists and local visitors since 2018. Opportunity to know the historical nuances and unusual Neo-Baroque premises that accommodate legends and exciting historical events;
gallery of Cinema History (opened September, 2019) – the exhibition is structured around the Latvian cinema and the Splendid Palace movie theatre, integrating them in the context of the history of cinema. It highlights major developments, films, cinematic terms to present the development of cinema as a continuous flow.

http://www.splendidpalace.lv/