Latvia's Oscar Entry Ulya Finds Buyers Across Europe and Beyond
Latvia's Oscar submission, Ulya, has been sold to distributors in 11 territories, and it will open the 30th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, according to Variety. The festival opens on 6 November, per The Hollywood Reporter.
The film is directed by Viesturs Kairiss and shot in black and white. It premiered in Un Certain Regard, a strand of the Cannes Film Festival that showcases distinctive films alongside the main competition. The original title is Uļa, and the cast includes Kārlis Arnolds Avots.
The sales deals are the part that matters most for getting a film onto screens. Distributors buy rights, meaning the permission to release a film in a given country or region, usually through a sales agent. Variety reports that B-Rated International is handling the film, and that buyers include New Mountain Films for North America (the United States and Canada), Destiny for France, and Invisible Carpet for Italy. Other reported buyers are Teleview for the Middle East and North Africa, Belas Arte for Brazil, and 1989 for Poland. Smaller territories are covered too: Cinema Orion for Finland, Hea Film for Estonia, GPI for Lithuania, ASFK for Slovakia, and Five Star Distribution for the former Yugoslavia. No financial terms for the deals were given.
The film is a co-production of Latvia, Poland, Estonia and Lithuania. Its producers are Ego Media, Allfilm, Staron Film and Tremora. Tallinn's festival describes it as an emotionally stirring drama.
The story is inspired by the life of Ulyana Semjonova, a basketball player born in 1952. She died in January 2026. Her life has been the starting point for a film that is now being offered to audiences far beyond Latvia, which is a reminder of how much of this business begins with a single true story and a long chain of decisions.
Being an Oscar submission means Latvia has chosen Ulya to represent it in the international feature film category at the 2027 Academy Awards. It is the country's pick, not a nomination. Deadline lists it among this year's submissions for that category. Only a shortlist and then a set of nominees follow that choice, and those decisions come later.
For Tallinn audiences, the opening screening marks the start of the festival's 30th edition. For the buyers listed above, it marks the point where the film's rights move from a sales room into release plans in their own countries.
