25/10/2024 - The main competition programme comprises 18 films, while the jury will be chaired by German filmmaker Christoph Hochhäusler and the gathering will open with David Dietl’s Long Story Short

UPDATE (25 October 2024): On 24 October, the festival announced its opening film, David Dietl’s Long Story Short [+see also:
trailer
film profile]. The picture, set to celebrate its world premiere at the Estonian gathering, stars Laura Tonke and Ronald Zehrfeld. Festival programmer Nikolaj Nikitin described it as follows: “Our German opening film is a feel-good comedy with strong dramatic elements, which works internationally thanks to its high emotional level, terrific cinematography and a joyful, diverse cast. The original title, Feste & Freunde, translates as 'Feasts and Friends', which is the theme of the film. Just like in Four Weddings and a Funeral, a group of close friends celebrate parties over an extended period of time. They experience a lot of fun together, but also tragic moments that prove that love and friendship are the most important gifts in all our lives.”

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The Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (8-24 November) has announced the complete selection of the official competition programme for its 28th edition. It will showcase 18 features from 23 countries, 11 of which will bow as world premieres, six as international ones and one as a festival premiere. According to festival director and main competition curator Tiina Lokk, the films utilise all kinds of genres and explore different topics, with those featuring issues related to old age and coming of age standing out as particularly trending ones.

Regarding the filmmaking approach used in the selected movies, she commented: “Being a film theorist myself, and coming from a generation of great, audiovisually minded directors, I am very happy to find submitted films in which the plot develops not only through causal narrative, but also through images and symbols. However, the competition also includes dramas with a linear storyline that are psychologically complex. For me, they are both appetising, and the official selection has them both.”

Greek filmmaker Dennis Iliadis, best known for his 2009 remake of Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left, comes along with Buzzheart [+see also:
film review
film profile], an amalgam of horror, thriller and dark comedy set in 1990s Athens, which explores the topics of love, manipulation and control, and which has already had a national release in Greece. After the success of Minsk (2022), Estonia's Boris Guts returns to Tallinn with Deaf Lovers [+see also:
film review
interview: Boris Guts
film profile], a story about two people coming from Russia and Ukraine who try to become a couple in Istanbul. The real and the imaginary collide in Girl America [+see also:
film review
interview: Viktor Tauš
film profile], a film by Czech filmmaker Viktor Tauš that revolves around a girl from an orphanage who invents her “other self” to talk to and quarrel with.

Out of Control [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by French actress-turned-filmmaker Anne Le Ny is a love story where a seemingly stable marriage is put to the test after 15 years. The cast is led by Omar Sy, Vanessa Paradis, José Garcia and Élodie Bouchez, and it comes to Tallinn as a world premiere. A German organist's carefully curated life is shattered when she finds out about her husband’s involvement in a corruption scandal in The Exalted [+see also:
film review
interview: Juris Kursietis
film profile], the newest film by Latvian helmer Juris Kursietis, whose previous feature, Oleg [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Juris Kursietis
film profile], premiered in the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight in 2019. Coming from Ukraine, Serhii Kastornykh’s The Mousetrap [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] is a war movie entirely shot during the filmmaker’s short holiday between his two stretches of military service.

These European titles join the four that were revealed previously. Reading Lolita in Tehran [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], the new film by Israel's Eran Riklis (The Syrian Bride, Lemon Tree [+see also:
trailer
film profile]), is set in a post-revolution Iran and tells the story of a teacher who secretly gathers six of her most committed female students to read forbidden Western classics. The Boy with Pink Pants [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], Italian director Margherita Ferri’s follow-up to her Venice Biennale College Cinema title Zen in the Ice Rift [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], is a story about cyberbullying and bullying at school revolving around a 15-year-old who decided to take his own life. Finland's Teemu Nikki (winner of the Orizzonti Extra Audience Award in Venice 2021 for The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanic [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Teemu Nikki and Jani Pösö
interview: Teemu Nikki, Jani Pösö an…
film profile]) returns with 100 Litres of Gold [+see also:
film review
interview: Teemu Nikki
film profile], a screwball comedy about two middle-aged sisters who are famous brewers of sahti, a strong beer made today the same way as it was 500 years ago, and a third sister who asks them if they can make 100 litres for her wedding. Estonian filmmaker Jaak Kilmi’s The Shadow [+see also:
film review
interview: Jaak Kilmi
film profile] follows a struggling poet and unlikely detective in Estonia, the “Wild West” of the Tsar's crumbling empire in the 1890s (see the news).

The selection also includes the European co-productions Pink Lady [+see also:
film review
film profile] by Israeli filmmaker Nir Bergman, which follows an Orthodox Jewish family facing a threat in the form of blackmail; Empire of the Rabbits [+see also:
film review
interview: Seyfettin Tokmak
film profile] by Turkish filmmaker Seyfettin Tokmak, a coming-of-age story set among poverty-stricken people; and Some Nights I Feel Like Walking [+see also:
film review
film profile] by Filipino director Petersen Vargas.

Finally, Canadian visual artist, animator and filmmaker Ann Marie Fleming presents Can I Get a Witness, a science-fiction dystopia premiered in Toronto's Special Presentations, and featuring Keira Jang, Joel Oulette and Sandra Oh, among others, South Korea's Koo Sang-beom competes with The Loop, Mongolia's Sengedorj Janchivdorj presents Silent City Driver, Colombia's Sebastián Parra R unveils Seed of the Desert and India's Vinod Kapr presents Pyre.

Lastly, the official selection competition jury members have also been revealed. The jury will be presided over by German filmmaker Christoph Hochhäusler. The rest of the members include producer Bianca Balbuena from the Philippines, her Lithuanian colleague Marija Razgutė, French filmmaker Jawad Rhalib and Lithuanian helmer Tomas Vengris.

Here is the full list of selected films:

Competition

100 Litres of Gold [+see also:
film review
interview: Teemu Nikki
film profile] – Teemu Nikki (Finland/Italy)
Buzzheart [+see also:
film review
film profile] – Dennis Iliadis (Greece/USA)
Can I Get a Witness – Ann Marie Fleming (Canada)
Deaf Lovers [+see also:
film review
interview: Boris Guts
film profile] – Boris Guts (Estonia/Serbia)
Empire of the Rabbits [+see also:
film review
interview: Seyfettin Tokmak
film profile] – Seyfettin Tokmak (Turkey/Croatia/Mexico/Lebanon)
Girl America [+see also:
film review
interview: Viktor Tauš
film profile] – Viktor Tauš (Czech Republic/Slovakia/Switzerland)
Out of Control [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] – Anne Le Ny (France)
Pink Lady [+see also:
film review
film profile] – Nir Bergman (Israel/Italy)
Pyre – Vindo Kapri (India)
Reading Lolita in Tehran [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] – Eran Riklis (Israel/Italy)
Seed of the Desert – Sebastián Parra R (Colombia)
The Shadow [+see also:
film review
interview: Jaak Kilmi
film profile] – Jaak Kilmi (Estonia)
Silent City Driver – Sengedorj Janchivdorj (Mongolia)
Some Nights I Feel Like Walking [+see also:
film review
film profile] – Petersen Vargas (Philippines/Singapore/Italy)
The Boy with Pink Pants [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] – Margherita Ferri (Italy)
The Exalted [+see also:
film review
interview: Juris Kursietis
film profile] – Juris Kursietis (Latvia/Estonia/Greece)
The Loop – Koo Sang-beom (South Korea)
The Mousetrap [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] – Serhii Kastornykh (Ukraine)