History

The first 2ANNAS film festival took place in 1996 at the Center of Creative Learning ANNAS 2 (CCL) as the only youth and experimental film festival in Latvia. The program consisted of only 10 short films and it's goal was to support and promote interest of film art in Latvia.

Gradually the festival grew and in 2005 the film selection crossed the Latvian border and 2ANNAS became an international film festival. The transition led to a change of strategy for the festival and in 2006 it highlighted the new criteria for festival selections - quality, flexibility, inovation and openness. In 2007 2ANNAS introduced many changes and updates. One of them is the sub-festival "Green Anna" - an international competition program consisting of short films made by filmmakers under 18. Another addition to the festival was a separate Baltic competition program for filmmakers from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which is closely connected to the foundation of the Baltic Film and Media School in Tallinn (Estonia) in 2005. The festival also adopted a one week event format.

In about ten years the festival evolves from a small independent event into one of the biggest film festivals in Latvia with a film selection consisting of 31 short film from 9 different countries (2007). In 2008 the festival starts to possition itself as the largest short film festival in the Baltics. Festival's 2009 selection consists of 42 short films from 18 different countries.
 

Year 2012 brought a new step - festival became RIGA International Short Film Festival thus becoming the first independent short film and audiovisual art festival in the history of Baltic states.  In 2013 2ANNAS became the member of European Film Academy (EFA) and started the annual tradition of showing the EFA short film programme SHORT MATTERS.

In 2015 a new competition programme was added - the International Medium Lenght Competition (30-60 min) becoming the Riga International Film Festival 2ANNAS.

Since the year 2013 2ANNAS IFF, along with the competition programme, annual and special screenings (e.g. Latvian Film Premiere Screening, Film School programme, Cinema Concert), festival offers an extensive Focus Programme, offering a research on a socially relevant topic through the expressions of modern and historical film art.  

Winners