Oleg

""The screenplay is a particular strong point: it slyly seeds the slow-burning sense of threat and unease with hints early on that Oleg is more vulnerable than he realizes""

Screen International
  • Archive - Festival 35
  • Director: Juris Kursietis
  • Latvia, Belgium, Lithuania, France 2019
  • 108 minutes
  • English, Russian, Latvian, Polish
  • Subtitles in Hebrew, English

Oleg, a young Latvian butcher, arrives in Brussels in the hope of getting a better salary in a meat processing plant. When he loses his job after being wrongly blamed for an accident involving an industrial slicer, Oleg is cut adrift. He has no permit to work elsewhere, no source of income, and he quickly falls in with a Polish criminal named Andrzej.

Oleg, a timely and impressive social thriller, received high praise from the leading critics when the film was presented in the Directors’ Fortnight section of the Cannes Festival.

Filmography: Modris (2014).


  • Director Juris Kursietis
  • Production Alise Gelze, Aija Berzina
  • Script Juris Kursietis, Līga Celma-Kursiete, Kaspars Odiņš
  • Cinematography Bogumil Godfrejow
  • Editing Matyas Veress
  • Festivals Cannes, Karlovy Vary
  • Actors Valentin Novopolskij, Dawid Ogrodnik, Anna Prochniak, Guna Zarina
  • Source Best Friend Forever, Brussels