06-02-2008

Estonia presents four films at European Film Market

By FNE Staff

    Estonia will be represented by four films at the European Film Market in Berlin which starts today in concurrence with the Berlin International Film Festival. The two newest films are Where Souls Go by Rainer Sarnet and Georg by Peeter Simm.

    There are also market screenings for Estonia's 2007 Venice Orizzonti winner Autumn Ball directed by Veiko Õunpuu and The Class directed Ilmar Raag. The Class won the Special Jury prize at Karlovy Vary, the Europa Cinemas Label, and FIPRESCI in Warsaw.

    Where Souls Go (www.hinged.ee), an Estonian-Austrian co-production, is a mystical but romantic story about Ann, a popular girl, whose domestic life is starting to fall apart. She looks for answers with members of a Gothic sect who promise they can change the future. It will be screened Feb. 10.

    Georg (www.georgefilm.com), an Estonia-Russia-Finland co-production, is based on the life of Estonia's best-known singer Georg Ots, who died in 1975. Although he had extraordinary talent, he never reached the world's great opera stages and was known and loved only in his homeland, the Soviet Union and Finland. Screening is Feb. 12.

    Autumn Ball (www.sygisball.ee) is a pitch-black comedy of human seclusion and the incapability to reach others, with touches of humour and the absurd. It will be screened on Feb. 8 and 12.

    The Class (www.klassifilm.ee) features Joosep, the class dork who has been bullied his entire life - until one of his classmates, Kaspar, decides to stand up for him and open war breaks out with the rest of the class. Its screening is set for Feb. 12.