Before the Light

Before the Light

77 mins | Documentary | Feb. 23, 2023

Emotionally charged story about three women standing against male dominated church preventing them from following their calling to serve God and their communities. Protestan female ministers who wish to serve God, the Church and people as pastors in today’s Latvia can only do that under the wing of foreign churches. Latvia is the only country in the world whose official Lutheran church has banned ordination of women after successfully practicing it for two decades. While some of the women ministers, refusing to accept this, leave the country to build lives as fully-fledged pastors elsewhere in the world, others carry on serving as second-rate assistants or other church workers. However, today there are female theologians who are ready to fight for a future in more equal society thus ending the discrimination based on ‘other sex’ or ‘wrong’ gender. The road towards changes leads through frustrations, confidence and doubts, obedience and rebellion.

Before the Light

77 mins | Documentary | Feb. 23, 2023

Before the Light
Emotionally charged story about three women standing against male dominated church preventing them from following their calling to serve God and their communities. Protestan female ministers who wish to serve God, the Church and people as pastors in today’s Latvia can only do that under the wing of foreign churches. Latvia is the only country in the world whose official Lutheran church has banned ordination of women after successfully practicing it for two decades. While some of the women ministers, refusing to accept this, leave the country to build lives as fully-fledged pastors elsewhere in the world, others carry on serving as second-rate assistants or other church workers. However, today there are female theologians who are ready to fight for a future in more equal society thus ending the discrimination based on ‘other sex’ or ‘wrong’ gender. The road towards changes leads through frustrations, confidence and doubts, obedience and rebellion.
Producers Rucka Art Foundation, Baltic Balkan Productions
Original title Svārstības
Directors Kristine Briede
Writers Kristine Briede

Cast