Latest news with #TallinnBlackNightsFilmFestival
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Creative Gate Opens Estonian Biz to the World
For international professionals curious about who's who in the vibrant Estonian film industry, the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival and its industry sidebar have launched a unique AI-powered tool: Creative Gate. The platform brings the names of more than 200 Estonian professionals and companies-financiers, producers, public bodies, casting agencies, crew and more to users' fingertips More from Variety Cannes' Focus COPRO Unveils Its Magnificent Seven: A 'Key Opportunity to Discover Talented Filmmakers' 'Promised Sky' Review: Erige Sehiri Delivers a Keenly Observed Migrant Drama With a Documentarian's Aesthetic Oliver Laxe Sees 'Sirat' as Accessible Art With a Tribal Beat The free-of-charge service, is aimed at facilitating co-production and filming opportunities in the smallest Baltic state, which housed shoots of Christopher Nolan's 'Tenet,' Paramount+/Showtime's series 'The Agency' and Sundance feature 'Bubble & Squeak.' Project manager Egle Loor says the brain behind the on-line platform is Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival honcho Tiina Lokk who thought about new ways to re-boost Estonia's film industry post-COVID. So far, the service offers information exclusively on Estonia, but it is poised to expand across the entire Baltic region and hopefully the Nordics. 'We have invented Creative Gate, so why limit ourselves,'says Loor who feels the tool could further strengthen the natural cooperation between the Baltics and the Nordics. To evaluate Creative Gate's appeal to other partners, including potential co-financiers, a team from the Festival has attended a startup incubation program at the Baltics' largest science park, Tehnopol, in eastern Estonia. 'We're fine-tuning our product to boost its efficiency, sustainability and creativity, and in Cannes, we will present it to international professionals,' said Loor. Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week Emmy Predictions: Talk/Scripted Variety Series - The Variety Categories Are Still a Mess; Netflix, Dropout, and 'Hot Ones' Stir Up Buzz Oscars Predictions 2026: 'Sinners' Becomes Early Contender Ahead of Cannes Film Festival
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Estonia Unleashes Ida Hub Film and Innovation Center
Known as a tech-savvy country where Skype was invented, Estonia is making a new leap forward by unleashing the Baltics' first ever hub where creatives, tech pros and entrepreneurs can unite to lift the regional audiovisual sector to new levels. The Ida Hub film and multimedia centre is being built in Eastern Estonia's Ida-Viru county, near the Russian border. It combines state-of -the-art studios due to open in 2026 and skills development. Closely associated with the project is the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival. More from Variety Tallinn Festival Hosts Baltic Goes to Cannes Showcase Creative Gate Opens Estonian Biz to the World Cannes' Focus COPRO Unveils Its Magnificent Seven: A 'Key Opportunity to Discover Talented Filmmakers' The $18.2 million Ida Hub complex, funded by the E.U.'s Just Transition Fund, will house a soundstage of 21,500 square feet, a smaller multifunction studio, post-production and creative industry spaces. Spearheading the venture are three partners: Ida Viru Investment Agency (IVIA), in charge of the whole complex, the Ida-Viru Business Centre (IVEK) which runs Estonia's first regional Viru Film Fund and incubates future film industry talents; and Tehnopol, the largest science and business park in the Baltics, which houses a film tech startup by the government and the E.U., the project was driven by the need to rebuild the economic structure of the region which used to be a mining industrial centre until its decline in the 1990s. As explained by IVIA's Teet Kuusmik, one of the priorities was 'to find new ways to attract the younger generation; this is when we got the idea to invest in film and multimedia infrastructure, and to create a magnet for new talent.' For him the goal is both to attract international productions and young local talents, while 'providing creative people with opportunities for self-realization in the film industry.' Teaming up with Tehnopol, 'one of the region's most successful IT incubators and startup accelerators' was a major step, he says, as well as securing support from IVEK. At the Ida Hub, Tehnopol runs the 'Film and Multimedia Accelerator' for startups working notably in multimedia, virtual, augmented reality and AI. Program manager Olga Kurdovskaja says 11 startups so far have signed up, including teams integrating AI into content creation, working on virtual location scouting, and developing modular studio infrastructure. One of the active participants is VisioTag which is 'developing a tool that helps media professionals and influencers accelerate video tagging and streamline post-production workflow.' Also present is the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival's Creative Industry Hub startup and its dual AI solutions: SUSI AI and its recommendations and event navigation tool for festival visitors and professionals, and Creative Gate, a platform connecting the Estonian creative industry with the international community. At the Marché du Film Cannes Next showcase, Tehnopol will be looking for new networking and business opportunities for themselves and their startups. Meanwhile Ida Hub's second major training gig, the Film Industry Incubation program, run by IVEK, is described by coordinator Britta Merirand, as a 'hands-on training initiative for professionals and entrepreneurs eager to enter the industry. The match-making program focuses on 'essential behind-the scenes-roles, from logistics to catering, photography and coordination.' Marge Liiske, head of Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event, underlines the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (known as PÖFF) 's contribution to transforming the Ida-Viru region from a declining industrial area into an innovative film and multimedia hub. 'Alongside running KinoFF – the easternmost satellite of the Black Nights Film Festival – and enriching the region's cultural scene for years, PÖFF launched its hands-on training program in Ida-Viru in 2022 to help locals with no prior film experience gain the skills needed to work on film sets. With the second round rolling out in 2024–2025, these new talents will hopefully form a strong pool of crew members for the international film studio complex, set to open in 2026. Together, these long-term efforts are helping to turn Ida-Viru into Estonia's second major audiovisual hub,' she says. Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week Emmy Predictions: Talk/Scripted Variety Series - The Variety Categories Are Still a Mess; Netflix, Dropout, and 'Hot Ones' Stir Up Buzz Oscars Predictions 2026: 'Sinners' Becomes Early Contender Ahead of Cannes Film Festival
Time of India
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Pithoragarh woman, 80, who refused to attend Estonia acting award to look after buffalo, now nominated in New York festival
1 2 Pithoragarh : Eighty-year-old Hira Devi , who had initially declined an invitation to a major international film festival last year as there was no one to care for her buffalo, has now been nominated for best actor at the New York Indian Film Festival , to be held in the US from June 20 to 23. She attended the event in Estonia only after her daughter stepped in to help. Devi and her co-star Padam Singh, also 80, have both been shortlisted for their performances in Pyre, a feature film set in a 'ghost village' in Uttarakhand. Directed by Vinod Kapri, 'Pyre' chronicles the life of an elderly couple living in an abandoned hamlet in Pithoragarh district. The characters, played by Singh and Devi— neither of whom had acted before — are based closely on their real lives. Singh is a retired Indian Army soldier while Devi is a farmer. They share a home with their goats and a buffalo and earn a living through livestock. Their dialogue in the film is sparse. Most of the performance rests in gesture, silence, and routine. Last year, 'Pyre' was selected as one of only 18 films from around the world to compete at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival in Estonia, where it won the Audience Award. The story behind the film began in 2017, when Kapri encountered a similar couple in Munsyari while researching another project. Moved by their isolation, he started work on a fictional narrative that would reflect the reality of rural ageing in India's higher altitudes. Kapri wrote no formal script. Instead, he filmed around Singh and Devi's routines. The result is a film where fiction gives way to presence: a document of two people continuing their lives, rather than performing them. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like 35 & Earning? Protect Your Family with ₹1 Cr Life Cover ICICI Pru Life Insurance Plan Get Quote Undo The film was produced by Bhagirathi Films, a venture led by Kapri and journalist Sakshi Joshi. Rejected by multiple studios, the film eventually attracted collaborators including Oscar-winning composer Mychael Danna ('Life of Pi'), lyricist Gulzar, and German editor Patricia Rommel ('The Lives of Others', 'The Tourist'). It had its Indian premiere at the 16th Bengaluru International Film Festival, where it received a Jury Special Mention in the Asian Cinema Competition. "When Hira Devi was told about the New York nomination, she was in the forest collecting fodder," Kapri said. Singh, meanwhile, is undergoing chemotherapy for prostate cancer. Neither actor has yet confirmed if they will be able to travel to the United States for the festival.
Japan Times
09-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Japan Times
‘The Brothers Kitaura': A sordid tale of filial impropriety
Corpse disposal is a complicated business even at the best of times. All the more so if you're as hapless as the eponymous protagonists of 'The Brothers Kitaura.' Masaki Tsujino's sophomore feature, which won the Critics' Picks Competition at last year's Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, is a tale of desperation compounded by incompetence and self-interest. When its characters find themselves in over their heads, they keep digging. At the start of the film, older sibling Sota (Masaaki Nakano) is in a state of arrested development: unemployed, work-shy and still living with his elderly father, Goichi (Taka Takao). He may be in his 40s, but Sota acts like an eternal teen, sleeping in late, getting up to no good when he's home alone and leaving his dad to do all the cooking. So when the latter threatens to turf him out in favor of a potential marriage partner, the ungrateful son chooses fight over flight, leading to an altercation that ends with Goichi lying dead on the kitchen floor. Unaccustomed to having to clean up his own mess, Sota enlists the help of his estranged brother, Akira (Hirota Otsuka), who's already in a bit of a pickle himself. Once the family's high-flier, the younger Kitaura is now facing personal ruin after an email blunder led to him getting fired for sexual harassment, then served divorce papers by his wife. You'd think he wouldn't want to add 'accessory to murder' to his list of problems, but he's more concerned about his job prospects than doing the right thing. I mean, who's going to hire the brother of a convicted killer, right? This is a much more acerbic film than Tsujino's debut feature, 'A Tale of the Riverside' (2020). Reviewing that movie for The Japan Times, Mark Schilling noted that all of its characters were ultimately likable, but Sota and Akira are too busy squabbling among themselves to earn the audience's sympathy. They're paragons of a very middle-class brand of mediocrity. Thanks to the financial safety net their father provided, both have reached middle age without ever having to take much initiative. Their attempts to get rid of their benefactor's corpse — a symbolic act, if ever you wanted one — are predictably pathetic. 'The Brothers Kitaura' features some impressive displays of ineptitude (as when the brothers try to squeeze the body into an obviously undersized suitcase), punctuated by extended bouts of bickering and inertia. After unintentionally offing his father, Sota's first reaction is to drape a towel over the dead man's face and retire to bed. The film recalls an earlier generation of movies about patricide, such as Terrence Malick's 'Badlands' (1973) and Kazuhiko Hasegawa's 'The Youth Killer' (1976), except in this case, the kids aren't exactly young themselves. Tsujino's script could probably have done more with this: Although there's an element of social critique here, it mostly takes a backseat to the bumbling neo-noir shenanigans. These are entertaining, although the obviously cash-strapped production struggles to pull off some of its big set pieces. Tsujino's background in shōgekijō (small-scale theater) also manifests itself in an unfortunate tendency to let scenes run on for too long, in the manner of an improv comedy skit that doesn't know when to end. But when the curtain finally falls on this sordid family affair, it's a delicious kiss-off.
