First Assistant Camera
"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.
Assistant Art Director
One sleepy Saturday morning a 30-year-old construction worker Erik gets some earth shattering news: his ex-girlfriend Moonika who he hasn't even seen for the past six months is about to go into labor. She however is not ready for motherhood and if Erik doesn't want the kid either, the little girl will be put up for adoption.