Interestingly, the majority of the projects in this year’s edition of International Works in Progress, one of the components of Industry@Tallinn, were made by, or in collaboration with, Russia and one of its neighbouring countries. One Kazakh, one Georgian, one Kyrgyz and one Armenian project all relied on the help of Russian backing, and the crime story In the Hood by Olga Zueva was exclusively Russian. Georgia’s 43 by Dimitri Tsintsadze deals with a woman coming back from prison to a family that has moved on, while The Song of the Tree by Aibek Dairbekov, from Kyrgyzstan, was probably the most extravagant project, as it is a Kyrgyz folk musical. 

Two film projects arrived in Tallinn from South America, and both dealt with death connected to a father-son relationship. In Antonio Sandino’s highly artistic Colombian-Brazilian co-production Amidst the Fog, a young man fantasises about killing his father. Meanwhile, the Argentinian title Packing Heavy by Dario Mascramboni depicts a kid with a gun on a journey to figure out whether to try to avenge his father’s recent murder.

The clear favourite – not least because of its lighter tone and comedy influences – seemed to be the last project, Crystal Swan [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Darya Zhuk
scheda film] (Belarus/Germany/USA) by Darya Zhuk, chronicling the female protagonist’s unsuccessful attempts at moving to USA. Visa problems force her to subsequently move back to her home village, where people live a life that is a far cry from the American Dream. Crystal Swan ended up winning the Post Production Award, which comes with €10,000 worth of post-production services courtesy of Finnish company Post Control (see the news).