10 high­lights from the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival

The Tallinn Black Nights Film Fes­ti­val is named in hon­our of the unre­lent­ing dark­ness that falls upon the city through­out Estonia’s long win­ter months. It is a unique event, show­cas­ing a care­ful­ly curat­ed, yet eclec­tic mix of cin­e­ma from across the globe.

Esto­nia has a long his­to­ry of inva­sion and occu­pa­tion, and 26 years since its inde­pen­dence from the Sovi­et Union it arguably remains a nation of frac­tured iden­ti­ty, torn between its tur­bu­lent past and a promis­ing future. This theme shone through the dark­ness of this year’s fes­ti­val, with much of the pro­gramme lean­ing towards ideas of mem­o­ry, nation­al self-deter­mi­na­tion and the con­flict between tra­di­tion and moder­ni­ty. Here are 10 high­lights from this year’s end­less­ly sur­pris­ing programme.

Coul­ro­phobes are advised to avoid this biopic about Augus­to Mendes, a for­mer adult movie star who, dur­ing the 1980s, became Brazil’s most famous TV clown. Ful­ly embrac­ing its peri­od set­ting, Bin­go owns its flam­boy­ance, explod­ing like a par­ty-pop­per of ​’80s hits and gar­ish out­fits, end­less­ly fizzing with the sta­t­ic of a cath­ode tele­vi­sion. Mendes’ clown is the overnight suc­cess that, stay­ing faith­ful to the celebri­ty biopic tem­plate, spi­rals into drug-fuelled, near-death lows before a tri­umphant rise to redemp­tion. Despite moments of dark­ness that con­note the man behind the clown, Bin­go remains an ener­getic return to the colour­ful realm of 1980s television.

A mul­ti-for­mat doc­u­men­tary about dig­i­tal solip­sism, BUDDHA.mov takes an obser­va­tion­al style and lay­ers it with screen­shots of mobile phone and lap­top dis­plays in an attempt to under­stand the psy­che of Bud­dha Dev, a flam­boy­ant crick­eter, and aspir­ing movie star from Goa. The film ini­tial­ly begins as a mod­est char­ac­ter study, but Buddah’s is a life lived through screens, and direc­tor Kabir Mehta employs a web-brows­er based aes­thet­ic to scru­ti­nise his var­i­ous Twit­ter, Insta­gram and What­sApp inter­ac­tions. The result is a hilar­i­ous, if often wor­ry­ing, exam­i­na­tion of dig­i­tal self-curation.

Writer/​director Aktan Arym Kubat, a lead­ing film­mak­er in the new­ly emerg­ing Kyr­gyzs­tani cin­e­ma (see also The Night Acci­dent), stars as a pro­jec­tion­ist-turned-horse-thief con­front­ed by the reli­gious and eco­nom­ic forces erod­ing the tra­di­tion­al val­ues of his home­land. Defined by a mag­i­cal, yet heart-break­ing approach, Kubat’s pro­found­ly mov­ing fol­low up to 2010’s The Light Thief engages ancient Kyr­gyz folk­lore about the rela­tion­ship between men and hors­es in a sub­tle dance with the region’s con­tem­po­rary land­scape of grow­ing wealth. Ulti­mate­ly this is a film about the pow­er of sto­ry­telling amid a cul­ture in dan­ger of disappearing.

After killing sev­er­al of the men who tried to rape her, a young wid­ow embarks upon a jour­ney of lib­er­a­tion. How­ev­er, she just can’t shake the head­less ghost of one of her assailants. Mar­li­na might be dri­ven by an all-con­sum­ing anger, but this rav­ish­ing­ly shot, female-dri­ven West­ern (com­plete with it’s own Ennio Mor­ri­cone inspired score played on region­al instru­ments) is laced with a gen­tle humour. Indeed, behind the back­drop of death and revenge lies a ten­der tale about moth­er­hood and the dif­fi­cul­ties of being a woman in Indonesia.

Ali and her fam­i­ly have act­ed as guardians of a sacred spring used to heal the sick and infirm of their vil­lage for years. But then one day the water dries up, is it because of the pow­er plant being built down stream, or does it sig­nal Ali’s burn­ing desire to escape her father’s con­ser­v­a­tive par­ent­ing style? Delib­er­ate­ly paced and attuned to the indis­cernible fre­quen­cies of the land­scape, this visu­al­ly rav­ish­ing med­i­ta­tion on the real­i­ties of wom­an­hood leads the view­er down a misty, poet­ic path that yields an effect that is both sub­tle and strange.

Eston­ian direc­tor Rain­er Sar­net pil­lages his nation’s myths and leg­ends to cre­ate a grotesque curio about greed and unre­quit­ed love. Set in a medieval ham­let, where wolves share the forests with ghosts, witch­es and ​‘kratts’ (super­nat­ur­al ser­vants con­jured out of old agri­cul­tur­al imple­ments) a young peas­ant girl finds her roman­tic over­tures for a local boy scup­pered by the arrival of a Ger­man baroness. Ren­dered in mud-encrust­ed black and white, this gen­uine­ly bonkers fairy-tale is a tri­umph of the goth­ic imagination.

A glacial ghost sto­ry set in a Chi­nese vil­lage threat­ened by the immi­nent arrival of a hydro-elec­tric dam, this unhur­ried tale about stay­ing spir­i­tu­al­ly ground­ed amid vast social change fol­lows Mr Yu, a Bei­jing busi­ness­man attempt­ing to recon­nect with the spir­it of his dead son by trav­el­ling to the place in which he spent his final days. Resist­ing an inevitable descent into melo­dra­ma, the film’s hyp­not­ic pace allows the audi­ence to absorb the lay­ers of mem­o­ries from the land­scape which, much like the spir­it of Mr Yu’s son, refuse to leave.

A spoon­ful of humour helps the med­i­cine go down in Gjorce Stavreski’s satir­i­cal thriller. Direct­ed with wit and pre­ci­sion, the film fol­lows a young man from Skop­je, who dis­cov­ers a hid­den pack­age of drugs and decides to bake a pot-infused cake to help his can­cer strick­en father. How­ev­er, it doesn’t take long until his new found pas­try skills begin to attract some unwant­ed atten­tion. Part bum­bling crime caper, part grit­ty social real­ism, the film’s ston­er premise is under­pinned by a rough-hewn real­ism that ele­vates this sharply exe­cut­ed com­e­dy into a heart-warm­ing expose of Macedonia’s bro­ken health system.

A bride-to-be attempts to unearth her past whilst her fiancé strug­gles to hide a dev­as­tat­ing secret in Bler­ta Zeqiri’s impres­sive LGBT dra­ma. This is a trag­ic tale of a young cou­ple whose wed­ding plans are dis­rupt­ed by the arrival of an old friend, with flash­backs to the Koso­van war reveal­ing con­flicts of the heart amid the hor­ror of eth­nic cleans­ing. A sen­si­tive por­tray­al of impos­si­ble love that asks if you can be true to your­self if you’re still try­ing to bury the past.

An elder­ly man runs over a mys­te­ri­ous woman on his way to kill the busi­ness­man who many years ago stole his wife and chil­dren. Bring­ing her home to heal her wounds, an unlike­ly friend­ship emerges and he takes his first steps on a fable-like jour­ney to under­stand life’s mod­est plea­sures. The deserv­ing win­ner of the festival’s main prize, this is a film about the inti­mate mys­ter­ies of being alive that lulls its audi­ence into a dream­like realm with occa­sion­al bursts of absurdity.

For more info on the Tallinn Black Nights Film Fes­ti­val vis­it poff​.ee