It is time to get out of the closet and show the world your teeth. The director, who considers himself to be Mozart, has been tootling with his films in the festival circuit for years, waiting for a big breakthrough. For an inexplicable reason, the world has not recognised his talent. Still only Salieris have garnered the fame and the fortune. There is a simple conclusion. The world has not learned anything in 200 years and keeps repeating the same mistake.
With his last breath Uu's friend entrusts him with the secret of how to go to the past. Uu is an engineer and doesn't believe in miracles, but the trick works. In the past there is a pleasant, eternal summer, long hair, girls and Jenkki chewing gum. In his real life, it is autumn, his friends are bitter, the girls are married and his father is seriously ill. At the end of the day, however, Uu has to decide in which time to live his life - in the summer of the past or in the autumn of the present.
A wide range of relatives and acquaintances have traveled to a funeral, and as is typical of Estonians, the sad event turns into a comical one as the evening develops. The primordial disputes that arise among the Estonians take on hyperbolic dimensions as events unfold, creating misunderstandings.
When a former fistfighter Madis leaves the prison, he feels he will get another chance in life. Nothing can go wrong this time. Madis will be accompanied by his nephew who has something completely opposite in his mind. A game begins where both the weak and the strong get more and more opportunities.
Andres is a sensitive teenager raised by his strict grandparents in a small bland Soviet Estonian town. He is being bullied at school and his only friends are the drunkards, whores, and thieves living next door.
From time to time, Mephistopheles manifests himself to the Estonian people through Linnar Priimägi. The released energy gives birth to chaos. Manfred Vainokivi tries his hardest to portray the one who causes it. Unsuccessfully, of course. Because even the largest letters are unreadable in twilight, as Goethe said. And there is a lot of twilight now. At least according to Linnar.
Portrait of Eino Baskin, an entertainer who has attracted audience (esp women) for years. His private life has been tragicomic, full of laughter and tears. Baskin has been admired by ones and cursed by others, has been imprisoned after a fabricated porn court case. He has outlived his wife and kid daughter. Eino Baskin has established two theatres from the scratch. After a second haemorrhage he was in coma for 47 days but returned. Rollercoaster is a cheap thrill compared to Baskin´s life.
Why do we care for writers who don't care for anything or anybody, even not for themselves? Still we need them and feed them, we love them and give shelter. Can it be that at certain moments we would like to be writers and also have this love-hate relationship with the world that writers expose. So when we keep our poets in a special house and observe them like we watch animals in the zoo, listen how they shout and howl their poetry, we are partly freed from our everyday identity and become romantic poetry desperadoes too. Take a closer look at Estonian writers in their private zoo. Their revolts and vanity, philosophy and drinking life style. Cheap accommodation is a way to escape, but it can be a trap too.
The film is set in a town that has a professional symphony orchestra, managed by authoritarian and confident Paul Levald, who has conducted both the orchestra and his family affairs for years. Due to dramatic events, Paul’s son-in-law Egon Rei must unexpectedly assume his duties. In addition to the baton, power and responsibility as well as the tensions in the orchestra, Egon inherits his father-in-law’s secrets and obligations from his complicated past. New lies are born out of old ones and, at some point, Egon realises that the revelation of truth might cause a real chaos. "Family Lies" by Valentin Kuik and Manfred Vainokivi is a relationship drama about elephants in the bedroom and skeletons in the closet, about small and big deceptions, half-truths and set-ups that can be found in every family’s secret chronicles.
A richly animated documentary about the extremely popular caricaturist Gori, whose fate in Estonia at the beginning of the last century shows the balance between power and freedom like a mirror. In the Fellini-like world of Gori (1894-1944), farce and drama, mockery and big politics mix. There is no subject that Gori's pen will not mock until the winds turn and mouths are closed.
A portrait of the writer Peeter Sauter, who has reached a low point after a divorce and thus also lost his desire to write. To get over this crisis, the writer embarks on a curious journey.
The documentary gives us a look into a year in Estonian recent history, namely the year 2019, which brought us a schism in our politics and our generations. Where are we headed in this unbalanced world? Can we protect our land from our own controversial demands?
All towns in the world have legendary bars and drinking places. Tiny Valli Bar in Tallinn links different times and people and the film is a portrait of Estonian drinking scene. Shooting months turned out jolly, but also dramatic. One of the participants was kicked out of home, two died soon after the filming. Drinking was definitely part in all that. We are not against or for drinking, we just want to see and understand it (if this is possible all together).
A portrait of two ageing cinema professionals who find motivation to live through endless quarrelling and challenging each other. An old film director and a camera man know a secret - when out of work you'll have to get fun and turn your own life into a film. And who would be a better partner than old colleague and mate. Their endless nagging is very much Estonian style, once one is up and the other down, and then it will all turn around.
Tells the story of the Estonian Olympic gold medalist Erika Salumäe.
This small, personal, honest experiment on a minimalist budget is edited from 12 years of nostalgic archival footage and ironical pranks. Mostly it is Manfred behind the camera. He follows Kristjan’s encounters and drunken conversations with the self-proclaimed cinema pioneer Eedi. Chess master Eedi can barely walk and can’t hear, but bitterly scorns Kristjan for filmmaking. Unstoppable dreamer, Kristjan continues to imagine a long-postponed film about the painter Jüri Arrak with never-ending hope to leave a mark in Estonian culture.
A jolly documentary that tells a story of Soviet time life style when stealing from the state was an act of honour for common people. Stealing from corrupted state helped to get by and held moral high. The common man felt that the state was stealing from him all the time – so one had to get something back from the real robber – the state. When all bits and pieces of rubble were stolen from the state – the Soviet Union colossus fell apart.
Leonhard Lapin is the classic and the enfant terrible of Estonian contemporary art, constantly followed by scandals, lewd legends and envious grumbling. Lapin confidently steps on the cornea of mediocrity, enjoying the situation to the fullest. Loved by his muses, the artist is not ashamed of his dalliances. He still has plenty at the grand old age of 70. The new Estonian film opens the doors to a disappearing Bohemianism, in which racy vocabulary reigns instead of political correctness.
Cabaret has always been place for courageous and passionate people. Passion on stage will take audience along. Some will get turned on, some will despise. Cabaret in Soviet times was against all rules. But it happened. And cabaret was hugely successful. Today only legends have remained. In documentary film “Red Cabaret” one time professionals will tell you those legends and intrigues. Take a trip to Soviet Cabaret!
Filmmaker Peep Puks has directed 61 documentaries and created almost 40 programmes for television. In this film, he looks back on a lost time, the films that have accompanied him, and the colleagues without whom this all wouldn’t have happened. It’s also the story of the first post-war generation of Estonia and the birth of the Estonian documentary.
