The 21st edition of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (aka PÖFF) saw the festival’s global online media reach cross the one billion mark, more than doubling last year’s result. The festival had media coverage in 70 different countries.
Black Nights also set a new attendance record of 80 289 which is a slight rise from the previous two editions. The festival and its industry event Industry@Tallinn, co-organised with the Baltic Event co-production market, hosted 1291 guests, which is a 24% rise on last year.
The festival held 909 screenings, with the main programme including 233 feature films from 70 different countries. There were 20 world, 26 international and 10 European premieres.
In addition, 50 features were screened at the Children’s and Youth Film Festival, Just Film, which also set a new attendance record of 17 000 and hosted its biggest number of guests to date - 28 people.
The new sub-festival PÖFF Shorts that combines two formerly separate sub-festivals – animation festival Animated Dreams and short film festival Sleepwalkers – hosted 130 people and screened 257 shorts, with eight films having their world premieres.
The festival saw it’s biggest number of volunteers to date, with more than 400, from 10 different countries, doing over 15 000 work hours.
This rise in interest comes as a positive surprise to festival director Tiina Lokk: „We are extremely grateful to the journalists and filmmakers who have trusted us and attended the festival during the busy pre-holiday period of the year! It is truly astonishing to see both, the number of accredited guests and journalists rise by a quarter with one edition!“
She went on to add: 'Although I consider the festival, in many senses, to still be in the early development phases. Having gained A-category festival accreditation, we can now say that a considerable part of the world is showing interest in what we do and that is extremely inspiring for the whole team."
Programme entries make first deals
As reported by Screen International, some of the titles in the two international competition programmes of the festival have already confirmed their first deals. The Official Selection title The Ball (dir Pasquale Scimeca) that had its world premiere at Black Nights has sold world rights to Italy‘s Coccinelle Film.
Also world-premiering in the Official Selection, the German-US co-production A Thought of Ecstasy (dir RP Kahl) has sold international rights to Luxembourg-based Paul Thiltges Distributions.
Having its international premiere in the Official Selection, Little Tito and the Aliens, (dir Paola Randi), distributed by True Colours has sold to Turkey (buyer Medyavizyon), Poland (Kino Swiat) and China (Times Vision).
The Belgian drama Resurrection that had its international premiere in the First Feature Competition of the festival was acquired by the Italian sales company TVCO.
