The Estonian Film Institute earmarks over €3 million for new productions in 2020
- The recipients of the agency’s latest rounds of funding include Tanel Toom’s and Giedre Zickyte’s new projects

lifThe Estonian Film Institute, the country’s film agency, has earmarked €3 million for new productions so far this year. The first slate of funding, announced back in February, awarded over €2 million in production and minority co-production grants. In particular, two projects received the grants of the biggest magnitude (€665,000 each) – namely, Rainer Sarnet’s comedy The Invisible Fight [+see also:
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In the summer, one extraordinary call for funding for the majority production of features was published by the institute, and the entire allocated amount (€450,000) was awarded to Tanel Toom’s sophomore film, Cerberus, which is being produced by Ivo Felt for Tallinn-based outfit Allfilm. Toom won the Student Academy Award for Honorary Foreign Film in 2010 with his graduation short, The Confession, and released his debut feature, Truth and Justice [+see also:
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Meanwhile, the beneficiaries of the September round of minority co-production bursaries include Natalya Merkulova and Aleksey Chupov’s fiction film Captain Volkonogov Escaped (€120,000, staged by Homeless Bob Productions along with Russian and French partners Look-Film, Place of Power and Kinovista), Alice Troughton’s fiction film Juhendaja (€94,000, a Nafta Films production with undisclosed foreign partners), Giedre Zickyte’s documentary Irena (€30,000, produced by Allfilm in co-operation with Lithuanian and German partners Moonmakers and Saxonia Entertainment), Renato Borrayo Serrano’s documentary Life of Ivanna [+see also:
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The body’s next funding decisions will be announced in early 2021.
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