Film Screenings / Programs / Series
SPOTLIGHT ON ESTONIAN CINEMA
October 13 – October 19
This brief series shines a spotlight on what is, from the U.S. vantage point, an undeniably obscure, unexplored feature of the filmic landscape: the cinema of Estonia. Guest-curated by Tallinn-based curator, Greete Põrk (Director of the Freedom Fries Alternative American Film Festival), the series showcases five feature films, spanning the 1960s to the present day, that chart the course of Estonian cinema from the Soviet period, through perestroika, to independence. Ranging from wartime allegorical fable to socially critical psychological drama to sci-fi, the selection includes the remarkable DEAD MOUNTAINEER’S HOTEL (an adaptation of the novel by Boris & Arkady Strugatsky, which will also screen as part of our Strugatsky brothers film series in November), and culminates with the uncategorizable fantasias of contemporary filmmaker Veiko Õunpuu.
Guest curated by Greete Põrk, who also wrote all the film descriptions below. Co-presented by Freedom Fries Alternative American Film Festival; special thanks to the Film Archives of the National Archives of Estonia.
