Freez­ing tem­per­a­tures and ris­ing ten­sions at Tallinn Black Nights

Nes­tled on the north­ern coast of Esto­nia – just across the Gulf of Fin­land from Helsin­ki – is the small city of Tallinn. Among most cinephiles it might be best known as a film­ing loca­tion used in both Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalk­er and Christo­pher Nolan’s Tenet, but since 1997 Tallinn has been eking out a rep­u­ta­tion for its annu­al Black Nights Film Fes­ti­val (known as Pime­date Ööde Filmifes­ti­val, or PÖFF, to Esto­ni­ans), which sees the city trans­form into a hub of activ­i­ty and excite­ment. Film­mak­ers and film lovers from around the world descend on the nor­mal­ly peace­ful city, which has a pop­u­la­tion just over 450,000, mak­ing it about the size of Leeds.

The fes­ti­val takes its name from the lack of sun­light the coun­try sees dur­ing its win­ter set­ting (just eight hours a day in Novem­ber) which gives it a dis­tinct edgi­ness over its west­ern Euro­pean cousins – there are no yachts or beach par­ties to be had here. Instead, fes­ti­val patrons, staff and guests alike crowd into a local bar after hours to drink, dance, and dis­cuss their fes­ti­val view­ing. Despite being one of the biggest film fes­ti­vals in Europe, draw­ing over 93,000 admis­sions this year alone, Black Nights main­tains a col­le­giate atmos­phere that many film fes­ti­vals lack. There is lit­tle hier­ar­chy in Tallinn – film­mak­ers, pro­gram­mers, jour­nal­ists and fans min­gle in bars, hotel lob­bies, and (if they’re up for it) saunas and frozen lakes.

Its autum­nal slot in the fes­ti­val cal­en­dar also makes Black Nights an ide­al place to catch up with high­lights from the annu­al fes­ti­val cal­en­dar. The 2024 edi­tion brought screen­ings of Cannes, Venice and Tel­luride hits to the city, includ­ing Ano­ra, All We Imag­ine As Light, Con­clave and The Bru­tal­ist. But as any hard­ened fes­ti­val vet­er­an will tell you, the best films you’ll see at a fes­ti­val like Black Nights are the ones you dis­cov­er for your­self, led by noth­ing more than a promis­ing log line and a sense of adventure.

As a first time vis­i­tor to both the Black Nights fes­ti­val and to Tallinn, I spent my first evening in the city pour­ing over the pro­gramme, putting togeth­er a sched­ule for the next four days. With 185 films from 73 coun­tries in the mix, it was hard to even know where to start – though arriv­ing towards the end of the fes­ti­val did nar­row down my choic­es a lit­tle, which was a wel­come relief in this instance. I opt­ed for an inter­est­ing spread of films across dif­fer­ent strands, includ­ing the South Kore­an time trav­el dra­ma The Loop, direct­ed by Sang Beom Koo, in which a high school stu­dent must relive the same day over and over, attempt­ing to pre­vent a tragedy he is part­ly respon­si­ble for. Lead actor Lee Hyo-Ye was recog­nised with an award for his per­for­mance as a trou­bled teenag­er attempt­ing to find his way out of a cycle of vio­lence – although at times heavy-hand­ed, it’s an arrest­ing sec­ond fea­ture which cer­tain­ly pulls no punches.

Sim­i­lar­ly bleak and brac­ing was Saulė Bliuvaitė’s Tox­ic, about two teenage girls liv­ing in a dilap­i­dat­ed Lithuan­ian indus­tri­al town who pur­sue careers in the cut-throat world of mod­el­ling. Here too it was the per­for­mances that struck me, with Ves­ta Mat­ulionytė and Ieva Rupeikaite deliv­er­ing a pair of heart­break­ing per­for­mances, ene­mies turned friends who both enable and attempt to pre­vent each oth­ers’ destruc­tive ten­den­cies. The expe­ri­ence of watch­ing the film was some­what enhanced by the fact I was in a screen­ing sur­round­ed by teenagers (pre­sum­ably invit­ed by the fes­ti­val) and I couldn’t help but won­der what they made of it, beyond the juve­nile gig­gling at every exple­tive or men­tion of sex.

Because of the tim­ing of my trip, I end­ed up main­ly see­ing films at pub­lic screen­ings, which were all bustling affairs held in Tallinn’s mul­ti­plex­es. I was par­tic­u­lar­ly impressed to see a packed house for the doc­u­men­tary Bil­ly and Mol­ly, pro­duced by Nation­al Geo­graph­ic, about the friend­ship that formed between a Scots­man (Bil­ly) liv­ing in Shet­land and the young, ema­ci­at­ed otter (Mol­ly) who showed up on his doorstep one day. While entire­ly con­ven­tion­al in its exe­cu­tion, there’s no deny­ing that Char­lie Hamil­ton-James’ film is very sweet and beau­ti­ful­ly shot, with plen­ty of stun­ning footage of Mol­ly serene­ly lark­ing around on the Scot­tish coast.

It may just be that I lucked out in attend­ing such busy screen­ings, but there’s def­i­nite­ly the sense that Tallinn Black Nights is a beloved fix­ture of the city’s cal­en­dar. Every morn­ing guests would get up bright and ear­ly to trav­el to a local sauna and ice swim­ming spot (I wasn’t quite brave enough, this year at least) and my hotel lob­by seemed to be a hive of activ­i­ty at every hour of the day and night.

On the morn­ing of my depar­ture, which was bright and freez­ing, fresh snow still on the ground, I made the – admit­ted­ly short – pil­grim­age to the Lin­na­hall, which served as the Kyiv Opera House in Tenet (sad­ly I did not have time to vis­it the Kumu Art Muse­um, where the Oslo Freeport scenes were filmed). I stood on the roof of the dilap­i­dat­ed build­ing, a rel­ic from Estonia’s days under USSR rule, and squint­ed out at the water, breath­ing in the fresh air that is hard to come by in Lon­don. My one regret was not stay­ing longer, and dis­cov­er­ing more of the pro­gramme, as well as the gor­geous city with its mix of Bru­tal­ist, mod­ern and pre­served medieval archi­tec­ture. But I’m cer­tain that if I do have the chance to return, PÖFF would greet me with open arms – despite the cold, it’s one of the warmest and wel­com­ing fes­ti­vals that Europe has to offer.

For more on this year’s fes­ti­val vis­it poff​.ee