A humoristic coming-of-age story of Johannes who is born prematurely to a very young single mother. His destiny is to be always separated from his loved ones, to be “different”, to lose his hair because of pollution and to fall in love with a Chechen girl. All this during the turbulent times of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Year 1208. The first Eastward enlargement of Europe is under way. Brutal forces of the Teutonic Order are steadily marching on. In their path live a simple and peaceful people, whose main pastimes include cultivating the earth, singing and, if possible, doing both at the same time. They are the Estonians. Ignorant in the ways of war, they find an unlikely leader in a young boy with Catholic upbringing. In their fight for freedom, the Estonians encounter numerous obstacles, including the Germans, French, Russians and, worst of all, the Latvians. Will they succeed in defeating their enemies or will they experience a cultural awakening?
In Estonia a political prisoner leaves the jail, only to discover that his best friend had stolen his girl. In Latvia a Russian soldier has a Latvian girlfriend. Her Latvian friends accept her boyfriend. But other Russian soldiers use coarse violence against them. In Lithuania an old priest had spent 15 years in Siberia and may still be secretly watched by the police.
In August, 1991, Estonia reclaims its independence from the USSR and brings to its national bank nearly $1 billion in gold bullion hidden in Paris for 50 years. Russian mobsters have a bold plan to hijack the gold after shutting down the capital's power at midnight
The main character, Helmi, is born into the house of Baron von Strandmann in Old-Town Tallinn, in 1908. The only thing that she knows for sure about her past is that her mother was an Estonian servant girl. Everything else is a discovery during a life that runs the course of a century - a life that has quite a lot of surprises in store for Helmi. In this house she finds happiness and suffering, passion and disappointment. She grows up alongside young Erik and waits for her big love to blossom. But one floor down lives projectionist Julius - a man who is far from indifferent when it comes to Helmi. All of the biggest historical events of the century leave their mark on the house. Its hardwood floors have born soldiers' gruff boots and gentleman's shiny oxfords. Its walls have held the fates of people from far and near, foreigners and locals. Helmi's home becomes a German salon, a revolution museum, and a working class commune. And as freedom comes, real estate crooks start sniffing ...
A teenage girl has problems with her family and life when her little brother is born with a heart problem.
The film tells the story of a single mother having trouble coping with everyday life. However, she finds in magic and fantasy a way to escape her reality until the enigmatic appearance of a man in her life. He will change her forever, to the point of making the decisions she has always feared. She will suddenly and conclusively have to answer her own question: what do I want? She will be given a chance to correct the mistakes in her life; will she cherish this opportunity or let it slip away?
A young boy lives with his mother on a farm surrounded by deep forest in the remote wilds of the Finnish countryside. From time to time, the boy visits his father - a man of great violence - in prison. Locked in the stable is an unruly horse, the boy´s only other companion. Their simple life is disrupted when a stranger appears, with a note from the father and a bullet in his side. Reluctantly, mother and son offer the stranger refuge.
Pathologist Abrikosov gets a phone call that a fly has taken a refuge inside Lenin's sarcophagus. No one knows how to get rid of it. Its Mayday 1936 and Stalin himself is about to come to inspect the body prior to Mayday festivities.
Follow up film to "Call-girl´s Christmas" captured four years prior by Artur Talvik and Rein Kotov. Kerstin, a prostitute portrayed in a blatantly natural-poetic documentary by Talvik-Kotov, has meanwhile been in prison for theft, then released and again called in front of the camera. A new person, perhaps, but still as skilled a manipulator of men as ever.
Three friends return from a vacation and discover that the TV studio they work for has gone bankrupt - so they decide to start their own costume renting business.
Six fresh short films on the topic "Own and Stranger" from even more fresh Estonian directors.
This is a portrait of a gull in a classical nature documentary about birds in the city. But it is also a philosophical contemplation of immigration issues that touches us all on many levels.
The first film in the Seto language in the world speaks about the brightest heroine of a small people, the folk singer Hilana Taarka, a woman who lived her whole life as an outcast in a small chimney-less hut; as an unmarried mother of children in poverty, begging her bread, doing odd jobs and singing. She always sang the truth, sometimes bitter, sometimes funny, sometimes cruel. She was feared, despised and coveted. Taarka sang throughout her remarkable life, throughout her fate, from a small Seto village to international fame. And she sang well. Really well. Taarka became the Mother of the Song, a legend. But as a woman, as a member of the community, the Seto people never really accepted her. Taarka - a despised woman and a worshiped singer.
A documentary portrait of Tiit Pääsuke, the most prominent painter in contemporary Estonia. Artist per excellence, creator of the imaginary picture-landscapes, a charming person, adorer of the woman’s beauty, gentleman and a colonel in local whisky club - Tallinn Uisge Beatha Club. “When painting, I compose the details of my pictures, my human models not as traditional painter, but more like film or theatre director works with actors, my compositions are as performances, theatrical happenings”. - Tiit Pääsuke
“Inga Can Hear” is a story about the 15-year old Inga, a girl caught between two worlds. Being the only hearing member of a deaf family residing in the remote Latvian countryside, Inga has been the family’s interpreter in the hearing world since the age of seven. Her role in the family has forced her to grow up very quickly and her personality fluctuates between a responsible young woman and a moody teenager. Inga is about to graduate from middle school and has to make a decision on what to do next. Inga’s head is full of questions. To pursue a career as an actress? To become a firefighter? What will happen to the family, for whom she has sometimes been the only link to the outside world?
Hans Wild Duck Gens, an old school industrial spy becomes suicidally jealous when the firm brings in a German performance artist who becomes not only the top agent, but also replaces him in his girlfriend Monika's affections.
The mirror image of a pop star falls in love with the singer's wife and enters the world of people through the mirror. What to do if your own reflection becomes life-threatening to you?
Harri is a lieutenant colonel in the Estonian army. Divorced, he only sees his 10-year old son during school holidays. Harri decides to make up for lost time by going to an adventurous father-son winter trip to an island. Missing the last ferry, Harri decides to take a local ice road over the frozen sea.
A documentary with a mystical-criminal air about a man who studies the story of a photographer from the Estonian diaspora in Canada who drowned 24 years ago. A branching, strange network of predestination is brutally turning against the researcher. The film is composed of material left behind by him.
