In just over a week’s time, the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF) will kick off over in Estonia. The top-tier festival is one of our favourites in the calendar year and attracts fans and critics alike. We will be attending for our fourth time and are very much looking forward to what’s on offer this year.
Today, this year’s Baltic Competition programme was unveiled. The programmme this year comprises of 17 works, including 5 world premieres and 4 international premieres and one Baltic premiere. Additionally, 7 previously released and critically acclaimed Baltic films from 2023 will compete for the award.
The programme curator, Edvinas Pukšta, is truly happy: “This year’s Baltic Film Competition astonishes with the wildest and broadest range of various genres, ideas, cinematic languages and techniques as never before. We will humbly present minimalist zero-budget experimentalism, extremely true personal stories and popular commercial flicks. We aim to show how creative, inventive, hilarious, romantic, rewarding and solid Baltic filmmakers are.”
Pukšta adds: “The World Premiere headliners are the documentaries Life and Death of Christmas Tree (dir. Art?ras Jevdokimovas) and The Ice That Still Supports Us (dir. Arko Okk), as well as New Yorker minimalist drama The Writer (dir. Romas Zabarauskas), starring American actors Bruce Ross and Jamie Day. The fellow two world premieres, Spit to My Face (dir. Manfred Vainokivi) and Taurins Senior (dir. Alexander Hahn) are small experimental personal films. Interestingly, Alexander Hahn is probably the most experienced and award-winning director in the 2023 selection, but he made the most unexpected zero-budget film.”
Baltic Film Competition will also host 4 candidates for the 2024 Oscar Nomination for Best International Feature Film: Slow (Lithuania), My Freedom(Latvia), Smoke Sauna Sisterhood (Estonia), and Polish The Peasants (in co-production with Lithuania and Serbia).
Here is the list of all of the films competing in this category.
Everything Will Be Alright – Latvia, 2023. dir. Stanislavs Tokalovs | International premiere
Life and Death of a Christmas Tree – Lithuania, Georgia, Denmark, 2023. dir. Art?ras Jevdokimovas | World Premiere
My Freedom – Latvia, 2023. dir. Ilze Kunga-Melgaile | International premiere
Spit In My Face – Estonia, 2023. dir. Manfred Vainokivi | World Premiere
Taurins Senior – Latvia, United Kingdom, 2023. dir. Alexander Hahn | World Premiere
The Brazen – Latvia, 2023. dir. Aik Karapetian | International premiere
The Ice That Still Supports Us – Estonia, Finland, Lithuania, Czech Republic, 2023. dir. Arko Okk | World Premiere
The Test – Lithuania, 2023. dir. Ram?nas Cic?nas | International Premiere
The Writer – Lithuania, Germany, USA, 2023. dir. Romas Zabarauskas | World Premiere
Twittering Soul 3D – Lithuania, 2023. dir. Deimantas Narkevi?ius | Baltic Premiere
Dark Paradise – Estonia, 2023. dir. Triin Ruumet
Eastern Front – Latvia, Ukraine, Czech Republic, USA, 2023. dir. Vitaliy Manskiy, Yevhen Titarenko
Slow – Lithuania, Spain, Sweden, 2023. dir. Marija Kavtaradze
Smoke Sauna Sisterhood – Estonia, France, Iceland, 2023. dir. Anna Hints
Stairway To Heaven – Estonia, 2023. dir. Mart Kivastik
The Last Relic – Estonia, Norway, 2023. dir. Marianna Kaat
The Peasants – Poland, Serbia, Lithuania, 2023. dir. DK Welchman, Hugh Welchman
The festival will take place in Tallinn from the 3th until the 19th of November.
