Taking place 13-29 Nov, the festival screened 650 films - out of which 289 were features, from 80 different countries. The main programme and sub-festivals together had a total of 61 world and international premieres.
Audiences and buyers love Loev
Director Sudhanshu Saria’s previously unknown Indian film Loev, which made its world premiere in the Tridens First Features Competition, has locked deals for all-rights with theatrical commitments for Estonia (MenuFilm), Germany (Pro-Fun Media) and Taiwan (Swallow Wings).
The film had three screenings, each of which sold out days in advance. The Q&A at the first screening had to be cancelled. Instead, the audience chose to stand up in a moment of emotional solidarity with the characters and the director who was too moved to speak. (For the BNFF website entry on Loev: http://2015.poff.ee/eng/films/programmes.p/tridens-first-feature-film-competition/loev)
"The audience response to Loev in Tallinn made this an easy decision for us. It is a lovely and universal story about love, relationships and human nature, done with a great and warm sense of humour. Deep intelligence is hidden in the story and I believe the film enriches our world," said Anu Veermae-Kaldra, Managing Director of MenuFilm.
"No filmmaker can ask for a better audience than the one we got in Tallinn. Their overwhelming, emotional response is the reason local distributors heard about us,” producer Arfi Lamba said.
Represented for sales by Wide Management, the film is currently in negotiations for various other territories.
Grand Prix winners donate award money to the festival
Before winning the Grand Prix, Korean film The Throne's director Lee Joon-ik and scriptwriter Cho Chul-hyun both expressed they were impressed with how well the festival was run. They learned how Festival Director Tiina Lokk grew it from a Nordic Film Week after the collapse of the USSR meant less diversity in the films screened here, and how it struggles on a comparatively small budget every year, and yet how the fest is still evolving and has grown into more than just a “best of the best” film festival. It is now also a place to discover world and international premieres, and which showcases and supports debuting filmmakers.
They expressed a lot of respect for their "comrade in doing film work," Tiina Lokk.
On awards night, Cho accepted the Grand Prix and the Best Music award on behalf of the film with moving speeches. The next day as he was departing Tallinn, he left a handwritten letter to Lokk saying: “If possible, we, Tiger Pictures including Director Lee Joon-ik and producers, want humbly to donate the prize money of Best Picture for next year's festival preparation.” He went on to say they’d like to leave the disposal of the 10,000 euros prize money to the festival, saying “We just hope BNFF to be a new European hub to create cinematic joy and fun!”
Lokk says, “It is a very generous gesture that left the whole team speechless. We are extremely grateful, but don’t want to use the money to pay for bills, but use it to support young filmmakers. We’ll use it as a seed for an award fund to support young filmmakers and their projects in the work-in-progress stage. We will disclose the full concept when it is finalized, with goals and rules formulated.”
Festival figures
The festival held 889 screenings. The main programme this year (excluding sub-festivals) showed a total of 227 feature films from 79 countries with 38 world and international premieres.
Black Nights' three sub-festivals, all of which broke their previous attendance records, made a solid contribution to the overall admissions record. Children’s and Youth Film Festival Just Film had 58 features in its programme and saw a record attendance of 15,224 and three world and international premieres.
Animation film festival Animated Dreams programmed 209 films which were shown at 49 screenings, gaining 2,600 admissions. Four of its films had world and international premieres.
International Short Film Festival Sleepwalkers reached an attendance of 1,000 for the first time, with the programme consisting of 157 films. 16 of those were world and international premieres.
Including sub-festivals BNFF had 346 volunteers who were picked from a competitive pool, almost 2:1.
The festival had 384 guests and 103 accredited press members including from Variety, Screen International, The Hollywood Reporter, The Guardian and Cineuropa. Industry@Tallinn, BNFF’s industry event run in partnership with Baltic Event Co-production Market, saw a total of 381 guests including executives from Wild Bunch, Gaumont, Elle Driver and Indie Sales. The European Film Forum Tallinn had roughly 200 attendees.
For comparison to this year's 650 films and 80,066 admissions, during the 10th BNFF in 2005, the festival showed 536 films and had 48,457 admissions total.
