Other events in Baltic States

A premiere of a film, taken and co-produced in Estonia Polli Päevikud (The Poll Diaries) will be presented at Toronto Film Festival, informs ERR/LETA.

The Poll Diaries, directed by Chris Kraus from Germany and co-supported by Estonian production company Amrion, will be screened as part of the Special Presentations program. Together with Kraus and the leading actress Paula Beer, the male leading actor Tambet Tuisk will present the movie in Toronto.

Kraus has made a film of a Baltic community on the brink of the World War I, drawing from his own family history. The movie is a dramatic depiction of the grimly gothic spirit prevailing in the doomed aristocratic society in 1914.

During the cold war between Germans, Russians and Estonians, a young and passionate Oda, the main female character played by Paula Beer, meets and cures a wounded Estonian anarchist (Tambet Tuisk) in his father's surgery. As their friendship deepens, family turmoil escalates and war closes in. The safe haven of the community collapses, facing Oda's family to challanges.

Majority of the movie was filmed on location near the west coast town of Pärnu, in a manor house on stilts above the sea constructed specially for the occasion.

With a budget of eight million euros, this is the most expensive movie ever co-produced by an Estonian film company. Several film funding institutions from Germany and Austria, Eurimages, Estonian Film Foundation and the Cultural Endowment supported the production.