29/10/2025 - Eleven films from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania will compete for the Best Baltic Film Award, highlighting the region’s vibrant cinematic identity and growing international acclaim

The 29th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, running from 7–23 November, has revealed the line-up for its Baltic Competition, which this year features eleven titles that showcase a fresh and distinctive voice from the region’s filmmakers. The Baltic Competition will open with Two Prosecutors [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Sergei Loznitsa
film profile], the latest awarded fiction feature by acclaimed Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa, screening out of competition.

Curator Edvinas Pukšta explained that this year marks a significant step for the festival, as PÖFF presents two separate Baltic competitions – one for fiction and one for documentary films (see the news). “With this year’s selection, we’re highlighting the growing importance of our region,” he said. “Nearly 40 feature-length Baltic films will screen across the entire festival, which is more than ever before. One of our goals is to celebrate award-winning films from the region, such as The Visitor [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Vytautas Katkus
interview: Vytautas Katkus
film profile] by Vytautas Katkus, which just won the Riga IFF Feature Film Competition, and to celebrate their international success with our audiences.”

The selection includes three world premieres, among them Borderline by Lithuanian director Ignas Jonynas (The Gambler [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ignas Jonynas
film profile], Invisible [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ignas Jonynas and Kristupas…
film profile]), a modern western set in the backwaters of Rusnė, where a mourning ornithologist becomes entangled in a spiral of smuggling, blackmail and violence at the hands of a local crime boss. In Flesh, Blood, Even a Heart, Latvian filmmaker Alise Zariņa brings a tender dramedy following a woman confronting loneliness, family wounds and body insecurities as she navigates a maze-like hospital and her own emotional past. While, Therapy, a Finnish-Estonian co-production directed by Paavo Westerberg, brings together a group of couples seeking to mend their fractured relationships in a seaside mansion, where laughter, jealousy and desire intertwine in a bittersweet search for healing and connection.

Three more titles will have their international premieres in Tallinn, including Latvian filmmaker Oskars Rupenheits’ Red Code Blue, a crime film set in the 1990s, where a young investigator struggles to survive amid corrupt officers, violent gangs and the moral collapse of post-Soviet Riga. Lithuania’s Romas Zabarauskas presents The Activist, a melodramatic film noir following a grieving lover who infiltrates a neo-Nazi gang to uncover the truth behind the murder of a prominent human rights leader. In New Money, Estonian director Rain Rannu delivers a dramedy about a teacher and her IT partner whose sudden Bitcoin windfall spirals into a dangerous web of scams, exposing the volatile dreams of digital fortune.

As for the Baltic premieres, these include the Locarno-screened Becoming [+see also:
film review
film profile] by Kazakh  filmmaker Zhannat Alshanova; the recently Warsaw-premiered Hunger Strike Breakfast [+see also:
film review
film profile] by Lithuanian director Karolis Kaupinis; and Renovation [+see also:
film review
interview: Gabrielė Urbonaitė
film profile] by Gabrielė Urbonaitė, which bowed in Karlovy Vary. The line-up is rounded off by the coming-of age drama Fränk by Estonian filmmaker Tõnis Pill, and The Visitor by debutant Lithuanian director Vytautas Katkus.

An international jury composed of writer-director Alexandre Koberidze, writer and filmmaker Gözde Kural and producer Montse Triola will determine the winners with the Best Baltic Film receiving a €5,000 grant, sponsored by Piletilevi.

Here is the complete list of the selected titles:

Baltic Competition

Becoming [+see also:
film review
film profile] – Zhannat Alshanova (France/Kazakhstan/Netherlands/Lithuania/Sweden)
Borderline – Ignas Jonynas (Lithuania)
The Visitor [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Vytautas Katkus
interview: Vytautas Katkus
film profile] – Vytautas Katkus (Lithuania/Norway/France)
Hunger Strike Breakfast [+see also:
film review
film profile] – Karolis Kaupinis (Lithuania/Czech Republic/Latvia)
Fränk – Tõnis Pill (Estonia)
New Money – Rain Rannu (Estonia)
Red Code Blue – Oskars Rupenheits (Latvia)
Renovation [+see also:
film review
interview: Gabrielė Urbonaitė
film profile] – Gabrielė Urbonaitė (Lithuania/Latvia/Belgium)
Therapy – Paavo Westerberg (Finland/Estonia)
The Activist – Romas Zabarauskas (Lithuania)
Flesh, Blood, Even a Heart – Alise Zariņa (Latvia)

Out of Competition

Two Prosecutors [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Sergei Loznitsa
film profile] – Sergei Loznitsa (France/Germany/Romania/Latvia/Netherlands/Lithuania)