Meelis Rämmeld

"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.

The owner of the Lipuvere farm decides to marry his daughters off to wealthy suitors from the Mulgi County. However, the hearts of the girls already belong to local boys, with whom a plan is forged to get rid of the troublesome grooms.

Fisherman Ärni has decided to take vacationers for midsummer due to the poor catch of fish. The plan is not bad, but extremely troublesome guests arrive at his beautiful farm in Muhumaa: Mrs. Sohvia, her husband Johan, their son Junior and Sohvia's beautiful sister Erna with her businessman cavalier Ivo. From first glance, it is clear that Ärni and his wife Laine will have a hard time with these vacationers.

The story of a man caught between the gears of life, who has to find the missing pennies to buy medicine before the pharmacy closes. When begging doesn't help, despair drives him to the bottom of the wishing well.

It's the summer of 1990. The Soviet Union is teetering on the verge of collapse, while the little Baltic nations struggle to take back their lost independence. The Soviet Union's basketball championship is set to begin on the backdrop of a deeply divided society. The Estonian team Kalev faces a momentous decision. With Estonian independence seemingly within reach, a rising tide of public opinion opposes the Estonian national team's participation in the USSR's championship. That would contradict the people's aspirations for liberation. As professional athletes, the team makes the unpopular choice. The championship games start.

Jaanus spends the last day with his wife Karin at home. In the midst of common eiders, seagulls, fishing nets and summer breeze, they send Karin's soul to the eternity.

An absurdist court drama where a mother and a father, ex-spouses, fight over the custody of their 5-year old son. However, the whole process takes place in the middle of a grain field instead of the classic court room. On that field the courtroom has no boundaries much like the mother and father whose actual goal is to exact vengeance on each other with no regard to the means used, forgetting their child entirely.

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.

Andres is a sensitive teenager raised by his strict grandparents in a small bland Soviet Estonian town. He is being bullied at school and his only friends are the drunkards, whores, and thieves living next door.

Emeri comes across a map from her childhood - a map that marks the location of a time capsule buried 19 years earlier - and memories come rushing back.

The film follows 12-year-old Ats, whose older brother Rain unexpectedly returns to the family home in a small seaside town to face their authoritarian father Kalju and their mother, a woman on the verge of losing love. Ats is a witness to the clash between his father and brother, two stubborn men from different generations with radically different views of the world.

"Where the Heart Is" is a passionate love triangle story between the young people of Paunvere.

A 10-year old girl's Christmas plans take an unexpected turn after she is brought to a mysterious Estonian farm.

Six fresh short films on the topic "Own and Stranger" from even more fresh Estonian directors.

After ten years of war, plague and famine, the land is swept clean of people. The few remaining souls are scattered about, living in misery and lacking hope. An anxious silence hangs over the land. On one particularly starry night, two peasants find a stranger on the seashore.

A fantasy film about two strawberry farmers whose field is destroyed by ravenous snails. The couple tries to start a new life in the city but when the woman announces they're expecting a child, the paranoid man suspects that snails are behind that as well.

The mystical and thrilling drama asks what sort of reality can give our life meaning. The film tells the story of Pia (38), an ophthalmologist, whose marriage has recently ended because she was not able to have children. As she strives to move forward with her life, Pia learns the unknown but also finds her inner strength. Unexpectedly, her deepest wish to become a mother materializes, but not quite in the way she imagined it.

Karina and Martin are in a pleasent relation where everyday life flows in an effortlessly accustomed way and no small misbehaviours can shake it’s rush. Life is good. Perhaps it’s this perfection and frequent patterns that make them finally pose a question – is everything to be expected in life? This is a story about following the yearning of your soul. Longing for something other than the present and having the courage to be deliberately lost.

The film consists of three chapters. The Manslayer takes place more than a hundred years ago. The leading character Maara is a young bride who is about to start her life in her new family. The Virgin, set in the spring of 1949, tells the story of a young woman called Elina, who has been deported from Ingria into Estonia during the previous war. The Shadow moves in the present, on the border of real life and fantasy. The main character, Luna Lee, has decided to flee from home. Is there anything besides emptiness somewhere? The film is led by the singularity of the leading character - Maara, Elina and Luna Lee are all played by the same actress.

In a poor Estonian village, a group of peasants use magic and folk remedies to survive the winter, and a young woman tries to get a young man to love her.

After a heavy decision, Anna and Juhan are unable to move on with their lives. They take time off at their friends' fancy summer house and once there, are forced to offer shelter to another couple caught in the storm. The couple assumes that the house belongs to Anna and Juhan and they do nothing to correct the mistake. Instead, they seize their new roles and start taking their mutual bitterness out on the strangers. Pretenders is a psychological drama about the truths and illusions of a relationship.

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.

Two men on the run cause chaos in a small community that is on the brink of getting swallowed by war.

30-year old Kertu has lived under her father's power her whole life. Because of her gentle nature, she is thought by locals to be a little simple-minded. The young woman makes her first timid attempt to change something in her life - she send a postcard to Villu, a handsome but degenerate village drunk.

After being fired from his job at a newspaper for writing a destructive review of a celebrated movie, Fred, an aspiring writer, learns that his girlfriend is pregnant.

Peter and his wife have dinner with friends in a restaurant. They have not quarreled for two weeks already. A new record could be in the making. But a trivial argument soon grows into a quarrel and the night brings weird games into their relationship.

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.

The film delicately follows 25-year-old Anna, whose mother has died suddenly. She wants to send her Orthodox mother on her last journey according to customs, but she runs into bureaucratic rules that do not allow Anna to dress her departed mother herself. This conflict brings her together with Maria, a 45-year-old funeral home worker, who in this story represents the hidden fears of death and grief on a deep emotional level.