Rein Raidme

An Estonian animated film.

Rein Raamat’s Hell adapts the engravings of Estonian graphic artist Eduard Wiiralt into a surreal, grotesque, and heavily sexual animated short. Wiiralt’s three source works, “The Preacher,” “Cabaret,” and “Hell,” date back to the early 1930s and portray a cacophony of bacchanalia, hysteria, and violence in the final years of Estonian independence amid the unrest of the Great Depression and European instability.

Based on an Estonian folk tale about of the gigantic hero, Tõll, who lived on the island of Saaremaa (Oesel) in the Baltic Sea. Though he was king of the island, Tõll often worked as a common farmer, tending to his crops and returning to his loving wife. He was a good king, often quick to anger but always kind and willing to help his fellow man. Tõll's greatest enemy is the god of the underworld who specializes in sly, cowardly mischief. When war comes to the island, Tõll arrives to aid his dying army, but the devil takes advantage of his absence to wreak havoc on Tõll's home.

A black/white world, slow heavy labor, each frame crossfaded into the next.

It can sometimes seem as though all sorts of machines will be able to solve all problems. But this notion is wrong. Once a polar explorer once again began his research. He never imagined that the elements of nature could be so powerful that no machine would be able to stop them.

A whale-hunter dodges icebergs while tracking his prey.

A short Estonian animation about a rabbit who creates a mechanical being that struggles to navigate a frantic, pop-art world.