I was five when I spent one of many summers at my grandmother’s house in Jekabpils, a little town in Latvia. I recall entering a cinema where she operated the ticket booth: that weekend featured a local premiere of “Oliver Twist“ directed by Clive Donner. We passed the main lobby and headed into the staff-only territory. The sound of wheezing and grunting intensified, until Fagin-like figure emerged from the shadows. This drunkard painted posters for films triple my size. It was there in that grim, dump, permeated by the stench of tobacco, tiniest of theatres where Oliver lived a grueling life of an orphan over and over again, that my fascination with the unvarnished human condition began.