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BLACK NIGHTS 2016

12 films set to duke it out at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival

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- The gathering’s Main Competition will welcome the latest titles by Stefan Haupt, Rolando Colla and Eduard Cortés, among others

12 films set to duke it out at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival
Dark Fortune by Stefan Haupt

The 20th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (11-27 November) has just announced its Main Competition line-up, to be screened between 16 and 22 November. The section will welcome 12 feature films, all international or world premieres, which will vie for the festival’s Grand Prix. Festival director Tiina Lokk said, “We have a more even programme on our hands this year. For the first time, all films will be shown either as an international or world premiere. And all are works of talented, mature filmmakers with an original voice.”

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The competition will be opened by Queen of Spades [+see also:
trailer
interview: Pavel Lungin
film profile
]
by veteran Russian director Pavel Lungin, who pocketed the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival back in 1990 for Taxi Blues. Written by Oscar-winning scriptwriter David Seidler (The King’s Speech [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Tom Hooper
film profile
]
), the film follows a leading Moscow opera troupe planning to perform Tchaikovsky's opera of the same name, while struggling with obsession and manipulation.

Europe will be well represented in this section. Vasilis Mazomenos will present the world premiere of his title, Lines [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Vassilis Mazomenos
film profile
]
 (Greece), an experimental view of modern Greece through seven vignettes of people affected by the crisis. Eduard CortésAt Your Doorstep [+see also:
trailer
making of
film profile
]
(Spain) is another take on economic depression, this time told in the surprising form of a musical drama. 7 Days [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
(Italy/France) by acclaimed Swiss filmmaker Rolando Colla and starring Bruno Todeschini and Alessia Barela, presents the romantic story of a man and a woman who meet on a remote Sicilian island to prepare for the wedding of his brother and her best friend. His compatriot Stefan Haupt (The Circle [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Stefan Haupt
film profile
]
) will compete with Dark Fortune [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
(Switzerland), the portrait of a psychologist who gets attached to an eight-year-old who has lost his family in a car accident. Florian Hoffmeister will also present The Have-Nots [+see also:
trailer
interview: Florian Hoffmeister
film profile
]
 (Germany), a study into the effects of emotional trauma caused by the loss of a close friend.

Eastern Europe is also coming to the gathering with two titles: Romania’s Eastern Business [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Igor Cobileanski, about a 45-year-old intellectual Moldovan choir singer and his friend, a sneak, thief and loser, who embark on a road trip together, and Latvia’s The Chronicles of Melanie [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
 by Viesturs Kairiss, depicting the life of Melanie Vanaga, who was deported to Siberia during the Stalinist political cleansing of the freshly occupied Baltics in 1941.

Lastly, Eitan Anner’s A Quiet Heart (Israel) tells the story of a secular young woman who starts making connections with an ultra-Orthodox community. The section is rounded off by Zhang Lu’s A Quiet Dream (South Korea), Narges Abyar’s Breath (Iran) and Roderick Cabrido’s Tuos (Philippines).

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