Hendrik Toompere Jr.

"8 views" is an eastern art tradition where one place (primarily the area around Lake Biwa in Japan) is described through eight motifs, among which are scarlet, snow, sailboats returning home in the evening, rain, autumn moon, temple bell, gust of wind, flight of forest geese. These motifs frame eight intertwining tragic love stories, the setting of which are modern Russian fishing villages of old believers on the border of Estonian-Russian settlements and cultures by Lake Peipsi. The spiritualization of everything living and inanimate from Japanese animism, the eroticism of shunga and the humble language of prayer merge into a spiritual and magical world of a small community, where one still believes that one is connected with everything.

In medieval Tallinn, a famous knight who is freed from the pirates of the Baltic Sea is murdered. The hero's head is cut off and his mouth is stuffed with coins. The gold chain he bought the same day is missing. The bailiff orders Melchior, a pharmacist , to investigate the crime. The clever young man discovers that the slain was looking for a mysterious "Tallinn prisoner" and the traces lead to the Dominican monastery. A fabulous sequence of bloodwork is unleashed - anyone who comes into contact with this secret is in danger of dying.

Doctor of Physics Sandra suddenly loses her job. Finding a new job seems easy at first glance, but it turns into various tragicomic challenges. Endless job interviews bring the former researcher together with all sorts of situations and new personalities.

Jussi Ketola, returns to Finland from the great depression struck America only to face growing political unrest. One summer night of 1930, nationalist thugs violently abduct Ketola from his home. Beaten and forced to walk the Eternal Road towards a foreign Soviet Russia, where cruelty seems to know no end, his only dream is to return to his family cost it what it may. Hope dies last.

Mattias has a dream to become a photography student of the Berlin Arts Academy. On the journey of following his calling, his dream is constantly put to a test after Mattias falls in love with a beautiful free spirit Hanna. Trying to win her heart, Mattias feels the need to prove Hanna, that he can be just as adventurous and unpredictable as she is. Breaking the law together with Hanna, Mattias risks everything dear to him, not knowing yet, that Hanna's bold acts are only the symptoms of bipolar disorder. In the moment of jelousy Mattias accidentally commits a crime that could put him behind bars for years. The only escape he sees is to get himself declared irresponsible. In order to achieve that Mattias decides to start faking the illness her gilfriend really has - bipolarity.

A young man tries to make sense of the world in the summer heat of late nineties Estonia.

Fleeing from the Russian secret police, a young Estonian fencer is forced to return to his homeland, where he becomes a physical education teacher at a local school. The past however catches up and puts him in front of a difficult choice.

“Landscape with Many Moons“ is a drama about a middle-aged man who lives a seemingly ordinary life with his wife and children. The truth is, however, that their relationship has reached a dead end but they prefer the illusory decorations of living together to the free fall into emptiness. The man gallivants around between his previous and current relationships without knowing exactly what to do with them. Living on the edge starts to overburden his nervous system and as a result, actual reality and dream-like reality blend together and it becomes ever harder to distinguish between what is real and what is not.

At an ever-accelerating pace, this thriller / dark comedy tells the story of 8 very different groups whose paths cross in the space of 24 hours. We meet a wide range of characters - from spoiled rich brats to real bottom-feeding criminal scum, and everyone in-between. In the best traditions of Commedia dell’arte, the characters each have easily recognizable roles

A mid-level manager who develops an aversion to being a good person questions his morality as he faces the challenges of middle age and loses control of his life.

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.

Retroband Evergreen's reunion party is ruined when Viktor, who was once the band's frontman, threatens to blow the house up for revenge of his sad destiny.

August 1991, military coup d'etat in Moscow. When Soviet tanks are on the streets of Tallinn, Estonia, all hopes for independence seem to be lost. People in the only local television station, ETV, are facing their own choices.

Mati is an assistant in TV studio. Patiently he has waited for his time to become a TV star but seems that he has to wait forever. One day an alien called Tipp is sent on Earth (by its chief Tapp) to find out the purpose of Estonian children's TV show "Tipp and Tapp". Tipp nestles himself inside Mati's brains that leads the man to unpredictable actions.

Three film segments.

Drama, Short 1999

Toomas Simmo is a simple worker who has seen a lot of injustice and carelessness in his life. Yet he has not become bitter or lost the ability to understand and encourage other people who are struggling with their problems. When he lies in the hospital with an amputated leg, her daughter presents him with the most difficult choice of his life.

A young man is taken to a small town hospital after a suicide attempt. Rita is a beautiful married Russian nurse taking care of him.

Five people who have recently reached their middle-ages are driving through Estonia to visit a famous witch-therapist to get rid of their problems. But isn't it just weariness of life that bothers the people whose life has gone into a deep routine ? The somber-funny road movie gives a good review of life, people and daily problems in Estonia in the end of the Soviet period.

Mari's mom is dead and dad's drinking. Life in an orphanage seems impossible to her, but there's nowhere to go. She has to get used to living without homesickness, brutal among other teenagers and children's. Fortunately, there is a Tauri who behaves well, but who for some reason is not much-loved. Robi, who breaks the rules, on the other hand, is everyone's favourite, although Mari thinks she should hate him. A lesson in seeing other people around you and seeing them under the outer shell is almost unbearable for a girl, but her fate depends on it. Based on Silvia Rannamaa's novel "Stepmother".