Evald’s Acre (45 min; dvd; English subtitles)

Director: Kersti Uibo

 

This contemporary film recounts the courage and pain of Emmi and Evald Saag who survived the occupation of their native land, first by the Soviets, then by the Nazis, then again by the Soviets, and finally lived to see Estonia a free and independent nation again. A sensitive and restrained study told with humour

 

Screening will be followed by a talk on Poetic Film Genre

Speaker: Kersti Uibo

 

At 14:30

511 Best Photos of Mars (9 min; 1968; dvd)

Director: Andres Sööt

 

The masterpiece of 1960s Estonian documentary combines hidden camera images of people in Talllinn’s cafes with music from the Beatles and G.F. Handel

 

St John’s Day (14 min; 1978; dvd)

Director: Andres Sööt

 

Film about the most important Estonian national holiday – the summer solstice, an ancient celebration, when bonfires are lit and parties held all over the country

 

The Winds of the Milky Way (55 min; 1977; dvd; English subtitles)

Director: Lennart Meri

 

This film travels enormous distances of space and time as it visits various Finno-Ugric peoples and observes their life-styles and some of their work-day customs and ancient rituals, their myths and history and their folk songs

 

At 16:30 

Arvo Pärt: 24 Preludes for a Fugue (87 min; 2002; dvd; English subtitles)

Director: Dorian Supin

 

Estonian composer Arvo Pärt has, for the third year running, been given the title of the “world’s most performed living composer”. Director Dorian Supin’s intimately close film succeeds in revealing Arvo Pärt’s musical thinking and his work opens a door on the inner world of one of the most spiritually intense composers of our time

 

At 18:30

Disco and Atomic War (80 min; 2009; dvd; English subtitles)

Directors: Jaak Kilmi, Kiur Aarma

 

This witty, charming and provocative film recounts how in the mid 1980’s, the nation of Estonia still lay firmly in the grip of the Soviet Union, and the repressive authorities controlled virtually all aspects of Estonian life. Rock and roll was but a rumour and the only television shows on the air were dreary propaganda, but one day everything changed…