Producer
Vello moved to a secluded swamp island 30 years ago. He left his career and city life to live in harmony with mother nature. Vello makes a living from beekeeping and hunting, his life flows in the same rhythm as the nature around him.
Producer
An observational documentary by Maria Aua is about the reconstruction of the former textile factory into the Academy of Arts. The process of transformation is the result of the selfless and hard physical work of the builders.
Producer
The director, who has always been viewed as the black sheep in her family, sets out to the Belarusian town of Vitebsk to talk with her parents about previous grievances and topics that were considered taboo. The effort to find a common language, which runs into stormy emotions and the inability to voice honest opinions, is captured through both personal moments and detailed shots of the protagonists’ faces.
Producer
Apatity, a far-north industrial town in Russia, first came into being as a USSR concentration camp. Although its environment is at the brink of ecological disaster, the people here still believe in the state’s promise of immortality that can be gained through sacrificial service to the fatherland. This is how the elite in a totalitarian state buy a person’s will, strength, talent and, indeed, life, turning the human being into another resource that is as faceless as a grey lump of ore. ‘I cannot fight big corporations or state structures with a film. But I hope that there is someone in the darkness of the cinema whose heart will get a bit warmer after seeing it,’ says the director. The larger part of the film was shot during the polar night.
Producer
The Wind Sculpted Land is a film about Estonian nature. The nature of this Northern country might not seem anything special at a first glance, but digging deeper one can find true gems. Flooded meadows, coastline, bogs altogether with wild animals and flocks of migrating birds are actually small worlds on their own. Even more, the very same nature has held and sculpted the character of the people living here. The film was made during 2015-2018, it took more than 400 days out on the field filming birds, animals and different landscapes. Filming took place in different parts of Estonia, mainly in natural parks. The Wind Sculpted Land is truly a magical journey to Estonia´s unique and scenic nature. The film is part of a film programme dedicated to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Republic of Estonia.
Writer
At the beginning of the 1960s, when the French pioneers of cinéma vérité set out to achieve a new realism, and when direct cinema in Québec began to vie for notice, the Baltics wit-nessed the birth of a generation of documentarists who favored a more romantic view of the world around them. This meditative documentary essay – from a Latvian writer and Lithuanian director whose composed touch has long dovetailed with the stylistically diverse works of the Baltic New Wave – pushes adroitly past the limits of the common his-toriographic investigation to create a portrait of less-clearly remembered filmmakers. The result is a consummate poetic treatment of the ontology of documentary creation. Also a cinematic poem about cinema poets.
Producer
A poetic documentary about life in a war-torn Chechen village, with the cemetery as its symbolic focal point. The village lives and breathes in unison. The Chechen gravediggers are always busy. Death is an everyday visitor. It does not even matter that yet another war has ended. The people live stuck in a circle of vengeance. They also gather into circles to chant prayers to God. Only the cows are grazing calmly next to the cemetery and the children are happily going about their business. The Chechens' parting words to one another are, "May you come back free!"
Producer
A reindeer herdsman’s life is as gently monotonous as the tundra itself. It flows in synchrony with the life of the reindeer herd from one migration to the next. The time between these two points belongs entirely to the herdsman. It’s áigi - the herdsman’s time.
Sound Director
A reindeer herdsman’s life is as gently monotonous as the tundra itself. It flows in synchrony with the life of the reindeer herd from one migration to the next. The time between these two points belongs entirely to the herdsman. It’s áigi - the herdsman’s time.
