Description

The church of Sāti served as the movie set in 2008–2009 for the film by J. Streičs “Rūdolfa mantojums”. The director J. Streičs had already chosen the movie locations ahead of time, but filming started only in the summer of 2007. 

The film was made on the basis of works by Rūdolfs Blaumanis. It depicts the life of farmers in early 20th century. Romualds Ancāns, Rēzija Kalniņa, Artūrs Skrastiņš, Uldis Dumpis, Jānis Paukštello played the main characters. The official budget of the film was 1.4 million lats, and it was then the second most expensive film in the history of Latvian cinema. The film was shot at the movie town Cinevilla, where the Rūdolf’s farms was built specifically for the needs of this film at the Durbe manor estate, in the rural municipality of Irlava near Sāti church, as well as in the Smārde rural municipality Lielciems farm “Mazlimbji”.

The scene of Rūdolfs (Romualds Ancāns) marrying the servant girl Emīlija (Rēzija Kalniņa) was filmed in the Sāti Church. The concluding wedding scene when Emīlija steps on Rūdolfs’ foot “to wear the trousers” in the family is considered one of the many comical and equally memorable episodes.