Beyond the polished facades of Riga’s old town — with its Art Nouveau splendor and cobbled streets — lies a different city. One less photographed, rarely spoken of, and often overlooked by the passing tourist gaze.

In Perle des Baltikums, Viktor Hübner turns his lens toward the forgotten corners of Latvia’s capital. For one week, he wandered through neighborhoods scarred by poverty, addiction, and the quiet decay of post-Soviet transition — places that remain hidden in plain sight.

This documentary is not merely a portrait of urban neglect. It is a search for dignity in the margins, for the human stories unfolding behind closed doors and crumbling walls. Through encounters with those living on society’s edges — people marked by hardship, yet often disarmingly open — the project reveals a fragile beauty beneath the surface. A pearl, not in its sheen, but in its depth.

“Autumn seems to me like a human life that slowly withers and matures for eternity.”

– Aunt Lisa