“Free as a bird” is offered as one translation of Vogelfrei, a neatly construed collaboration between four Latvian directors with one mission: to escape their droning, limiting careers in advertising.

In past interviews the directors have recurrently stressed that Latvia is an environment far from conducive to free creative expression. Films that have no purpose other than diversion tend to be regarded as trinkets, and it’s with a damning sense of necessity that Vogelfrei’s directors have had to earn their bread through tailoring television commercials.

Sure enough, it’s very rarely that we associate cinema with Latvia, and this is as much a porthole into the country’s strangled creativity as it is a moment of blissful abandon for those involved.

Vogelfrei is a product of four parts. Together they depict the four stages of a man’s life, portrayed neatly across four seasons. It celebrates life and the nature that supports it.

The filmmakers describe the product as a quartet. Aptly so in that they’ve made a concerted effort to bring harmony to the segments. Ideas were pitched together from the start in pursuit of a common goal, and the ethos of sharing lived on throughout the making of the film, with even cameramen occasionally swapping hands.

As a consequence Vogelfrei is very different from the kind of hotchpotch collaborations we are used to seeing in, say, The Animatrix or Paris, je t’aime. The directors are not in competition with each other and the resulting film oozes a sense of solidarity and benevolence. So much so that one Latvian critic called it a parable.

‘Mellow’ would best describe the tone of the film if it didn’t so undermine its true power. Unlike many portmanteaus Vogelfrei is much greater than the sum of its parts.

Vogelfrei is screening on Monday 23 and Wednesday 25 June at Cineworld.