A Million Folk Songs

The film offers an audiovisual narrative of the making of the longest-running and most extensive publication in Latvian folklore—a project spanning over 70 years. What does it mean to “write down” folk songs? How does a song travel from oral tradition to the printed page? What ideological and financial challenges had to be overcome to publish the volumes? Through archival footage and scenes from the compilers’ everyday work, the film explores what it means to live with folk songs—told by the editors themselves.