Festival Director Tiina Lokk says, “The festival was looking for the birth of an artist with an original and strong vision and the ability to engage the audiences with universally graspable messages. We are extremely pleased with the results, especially having a highly versatile mixture of films and filmmakers from countries all over the world. It was painful to leave out some really strong films.

In addition, the programme has two films Out of Competition.

As a new initiative, the festival is starting the ticket sales for all the first features’ screenings today, ahead of the rest of the programme.


The festival's programmers have noted common themes in the selection, such as how people and their destinies are shaped by their environments in Delivery (World Premiere/WP) by Columbian director Martin Mejira Rugeles - a small and quiet yet enchanting celebration of life on 16mm film.

The film follows a pregnant woman living in a distant Columbian forest village, building an increasingly immersive narrative around the documentary-like observation of the routinely daily activities and minimalist interactions of the villagers.

The intersection of small stories and a kind of a quasi-anthopological study of people in their every-day environment is also one of the central motifs in the Australian film Pawno (International Premiere/IP).

The setting is metropolitan Melbourne, a melting pot of cultures, races and people desperately looking for love. Director Paul Ireland’s laid-back, more stylised approach is focused on telling stories, the quirky melodramas of the people whose point of interaction is a pawnshop owned by an old school charmer of a tough guy and his young employee. The film balances between the sweet and serious encounters in life, ending up being a romantic urban symphony of sorts.

The change of ties with one's habitat is one of the central conflicts in the Iranian debut Two (WP), which is directed by an acclaimed Iranian actress Soheila Golestani, who starred in the film Today - winner of several awards at Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival last year.

Her directorial debut, a fine example of the modernised visual language of Iranian cinema, studies the problematic communicational efforts of a cleaning woman and a man who has started a family in Germany and has only returned to Iran to sell his former home with which he has lost all emotional connection.

Identities in flux

Tel Aviv acts as one of the characters in the US drama Lost in the White City (IP). Directing duo Tanner King Barklow and Gil Kofman present a story about artistic, emotional and sexual self-discovery in a culturally and politically complex environment.

The inner tensions of the two American students, writer Eva and experimental filmmaker Kyle, trying to fix their broken relationship, are amplified by the city, under which hedonistic and culturally flourishing facade is the ever-present threat of violence, inflicted by the seemingly never-ending conflict of Israel and Palestine.

German-Mongolian director Uisenma Borchu presents us an intriguing situation in Don’t Look at Me That Way (IP) where a young seductive Mongolian woman living in Germany, Hedi, toys with a single mother and adopting her son, as well as sleeping with the boy's delinquent grandfather. The director exposes herself radically in the role of Hedi, confronting viewers with questions of gender roles, power, sexuality and identity, effectively mixing the borders of reality and the subconscious of the protagonist.


Road trips

Similar motifs of relationships in distress can be felt in Loev (WP), a rather astonishing feat by the Darjeeling-born director Sudhansu Saria presenting with admirable delicacy a story of the complex triangular relationship between three gay Indian men.

Central to the film is the scenic road-trip taken by the business shark Jai residing in the U.S. and the bohemian musician Sahil, slowly discovering that living in different time zones can be as dangerous to liaisons as is having unregulated relations with your boyfriends.

The painful realisation of changing personalities and the sense of drifting apart is also the central theme in Road-Movie (WP). A young ambitious advertising professional goes on a road trip with his childhood girlfriend only to realise how far his pragmatic mindset has taken him from her spiritual freedom and naiveté.

Never falling into didactic preaching, the young Czech director Martin Jelinek demonstrates enjoyable talent in the road movie genre, creating a truly intimate and warm atmosphere on the protagonists’ journey.


Journeys as self-discoveries

A bittersweet afterglow of an ancient culture in decline can be felt in Paraguayan-Argentinian co-production Guarani (WP) by director Luis Zorraquin, where a traditional Guarani-speaking grandfather reluctantly experiences that his descendants are drifting away from the traditional lifestyle.

The proud river boat operator senses the angst of her closest granddaughter and sets out with her on a journey of self discovery and reconciliation through the scenic Paraguayan countryside to Buenos Aires looking for the girl’s mother.

The journey, in a physical and, even more so, a moral sense is also a central theme in the Russian feature The Find (IP), directed by award-winning TV documentary and theatre director Viktor Dement.

A hard-boiled fishing and hunting inspector is forced to take a long hike back home through the Siberian forests, accidentally stumbling on a discovery - an abandoned baby - that sets his life on a new path, pursuing moral justice to the very extreme.

The Estonian documentary filmmaker Urmas E. Liiv’s debut Ghost Mountaineer (WP) employs autobiographical elements in an adventure story set in the Siberian taiga balancing youth drama with mysticism and horror elements.

A trip led by geology students looking for the then rare nephrite rock, goes awry when one member of the group goes missing. The rest are forced to face the superstitions of the indigenous people and the repressions of the Soviet police department.


Families after breakups

Swinging eloquently between comedy and drama, the Norwegian first-time director Charlotte Blom presents the story of the impact of the break-up of a couple with two children in Staying Alive (IP). Agnes Kittelsen (Kon-Tiki) portrays a mother who has to cope with the hole left behind by his husband’s decision to start over with a co-worker, while also discovering the unexpected polygamous relationships of her parents.

In the Spanish feature Food and Shelter (IP) by director Juan Miguel del Castillo the story of a young single mother and her son fighting to avoid eviction and starvation serves as a powerful and poignant societal critique of the Spanish government neglecting the plights of thousands of families with special needs.

The film follows Rocia (Berlinale EFP award winner Natalia de Molina) struggling to care for her son Adrian and herself by finding a steady job during an economical recession that has been plaguing the country for years.

A road trip as a means of escape forms the psychological foundation for the French-Columbian co-production Anna, (WP) a story of an emotionally distressed and socially irresponsible yet adventurous mother desperately trying to fight for the right to be with her beloved son.

Director Jacques Toulemonde Vidal’s film is a character study of a woman whose aspirations, emotions and reality don’t converge the way she desires them to, as Anna and her supportive new boyfriend plan to open a restaurant on a Columbian beach, taking Anna's son illegally from his father's custody in France and set out on an escape journey.

Long-time Israeli film editor and lecturer Tova Ascher makes her directorial debut with A.K.A. Nadia (IP), telling a story about a Palestinian woman forced to change her identity only to experience the re-emergence of her past decades later, threatening the balance of her new Israeli family.

Her film is a fine example of quiet and indirect critique of the political and ideological status quo in Israel, conveyed instead through talking about the supranational and universal values we all share.

Out of Competition

South Korean historical drama Snowy Road by director Lee Najeong gives a twist to story-telling by literally employing the metaphor of ghosts of the past.

The protagonist Jong-bun is an elderly woman whose past as a ‘comfort woman’ for the Japanese army during World War II is being represented to the viewer via her encounter with a young girl who brings back her sufferings in the Japanese camps.

In the French film All Three of Us the director and leading actor Kheiron delivers a moving feel-good drama with comedic elements, depicting a journey of an Iranian family migrating to France in search of a better life.

In an era where mass immigration is mostly seen as a problem in Europe and migrants as an anonymous mass, the film moves into the opposite direction, giving names, faces and personal stories to people looking to improve their lives.

The 19th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival will run 13-29 November with Industry@Tallinn 16-20 November. The festival awards ceremony will be held 27 November.