Latvia has selected Ulya, directed by Viesturs Kairišs, as its contender for the international feature film category at the 2027 Academy Awards. The black-and-white drama stars Kārlis Arnolds Avots as Uljana Semjonova, the Latvian basketball legend who became the first non-U.S. woman inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. The film premiered at Cannes in the Un Certain Regard section and will open Estonia’s Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival on Friday.

Inspired by Semjonova’s life, Ulya follows her from an isolated rural Old Believer community into professional basketball, where she faces the attention surrounding her extraordinary height as well as the pressures of elite sport. Semjonova won Olympic gold with the Soviet Union in 1976 and 1980, and was a two-time Olympic and three-time world champion.

Kairišs said the idea took shape after Avots told him he had long wanted to play Semjonova. The director was moved by the story of a tall girl living in the countryside who is discovered and brought to Riga by coaches. He said he was not initially looking to make a historical or sports film, but the premise immediately suggested a movie to him.

Avots is a male actor playing the female athlete. Kairišs said the casting felt right from the outset, although some potential co-producers questioned how it would appear on screen. The director said he was not interested in making a conventional film about Semjonova.

Kairišs cited Werner Herzog’s The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser as an early point of reference, and said he suggested watching Ingmar Bergman’s Persona with cinematographer Wojciech Staroń. He described the film’s central challenge as finding a way to enter Semjonova’s inner world, rather than showing only the external events of her life.

The director also said the film’s focus on one person’s private struggles could resonate more broadly, through the idea of people concealing parts of themselves to meet outside expectations. Semjonova, who lived near Avots in Riga, developed a relationship with the film’s team and trusted them. The film ends with a photograph of her and Avots. Semjonova died in January.

Ulya is Kairišs’ third film selected by Latvia for the Oscar race, following January (2022) and The Chronicles of Melanie (2017). The new film is a co-production involving Latvia, Poland, Estonia and Lithuania. Kairišs said it has become a local blockbuster, with around 105,000 admissions and counting since its release earlier this year. He described that performance as remarkable for a black-and-white art-house film.

Sources: The Hollywood Reporter.