Livonians of Professor Viitso (2011)

Every person and every language have their own lifespan - birth, life, possible vanishing. Livonian language, one of the closest relatives to Estonian language, is about to disappear as a living language of communication. In 2009-2019, the Professor Emeritus of the University of Tartu, linguist Tiit-Rein Viitso met factually the last people for whom Livonian language has been their mother tongue: Viktor Berthold from Liepājast, Erna Vanaga from Ventspils and Grizelda Kristiņ from Toronto area in Canada. In Helsinki, professor Viitso also met Seppo Suhonen, a meritorious researcher of Livonian language. This documentary in Livonian language became a farewell with the bearers of the cultural memory of Livonians – by the time when the film was completed in spring 2011, only 101-year-old Grizelda Kristin was alive among those who were visited during the filmmaking process.