05/05/2025 - Jaak Kilmi’s period thriller and Pavlo Ostrikov’s sci-fi triumph at the festival’s 20th anniversary edition

Director Jaak Kilmi with his award for The Shadow (© Sandra Sarv)

It’s a wrap for the 20th edition of Estonian spookfest Haapsalu Horror and Fantasy Film Festival (HÕFF), which saw The Shadow [+see also:
film review
interview: Jaak Kilmi
film profile] win Best Estonian Genre Film. Jaak Kilmi’s period thriller focuses on poet and amateur director Juhan Liiv, dreaming of freedom for his homeland while also battling his own demons – just like most of the costumed and heavily made up HÕFF audience. “The jury that gave the prize in HÕFF was a group of five teenagers from a school in Haapsalu. Many of them had seen the film before – many teachers included it in their classes. I was very pleased about this because I was afraid that putting the most iconic Estonian poet in the context of a crime story would be an act of blasphemy. I was told that, on the contrary, it helped teachers arouse their students’ interest towards him," said Kilmi.

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In our interview with him (read here), festival director Helmut Jänes opened up about some of the struggles faced by local genre films, often more appreciated abroad than at home. “I certainly don’t want to believe we’re unable to appreciate them, but the reality is that films not aimed at mass audiences often struggle with distribution. Unless they perform well at the box office in their first week, it is very difficult to secure good screening slots. It’s a constant and challenging task for auteur filmmakers, and not just in Estonia. You have to find ways to make yourself visible.”

Ukrainian curio U Are the Universe [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Pavlo Ostrikov
film profile] by Pavlo Ostrikov, co-produced with Belgium, was chosen as Best Science Fiction Film. Set in the near future, it depicts a lonely space trucker drifting away after the Earth disappears. Accompanied by a robot, he seems resigned to his fate – until he hears a woman’s voice.

Elis Rumma’s Come Sit with Us was named Best Estonian Short Genre Film, while in the Short Film Méliès d’Argent competition, Portuguese title Atom & Void by Gonçalo Almeida proved unbeatable, following the protagonist – an actual spider – “attempting to escape a seemingly impossible situation.” “As they crawl towards the light, the true nature of their predicament – as well as ours – is soon revealed. Not only is the film a remarkable technical feat but, like all great sci-fi, it soon turns out to be a thoughtful treatise on human nature, even in the absence of said humans. And an uncomfortable meditation on where we are going and the ultimate control we have on the universe around us,” argued the jurors, who valued “the diversity of films on offer that showed the depth and range of what a ‘genre’ film can actually be.”

The special mentions in the Méliès d’Argent competition went to France’s Crave, directed by Mark Middlewick – “a film that subtly explores desire in a piece carried along with some excellent lead performances and delicate filmmaking” – and the Spanish-French animated film Paradise Buffet, directed by Santi Amézqueta and Héctor Zafra. “It shows that life may not have changed that much since 1973 classic La Grande Bouffe. With a grotesque yet strangely beautiful animation, decadence and greed take centre stage in a film that revels in the viscera of gluttony and rallies against an era where consumption is ‘the be all and end all’ of everything.”

“The amount of European genre films in the programme can only make you feel good,” said Jänes. It’s certainly scary.

The full list of awards:

Best Estonian Genre Film
The Shadow [+see also:
film review
interview: Jaak Kilmi
film profile] - Jaak Kilmi (Estonia)

Best Estonian Short Genre Film
Come Sit with Us - Elis Rumma (Estonia)

Best Science Fiction Film
U Are the Universe [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Pavlo Ostrikov
film profile] - Pavlo Ostrikov (Ukraine/Belgium)

Short Film Méliès d'Argent
Atom & Void - Gonçalo Almeida (Portugal)
Special Mention
Crave - Mark Middlewick (France)
Paradise Buffet - Santi Amézqueta, Héctor Zafra (Spain/France)