Oscar-nominated for his short film The Confession, and later shortlisted for the family saga Truth and Justice [+lee también:
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entrevista: Tanel Toom
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Cineuropa: How did you see this film, visually? It feels like all hope is gone here, and so is the sun. A bit like in Das Boot.
Tanel Toom: It’s funny that you mention Das Boot. Back in 2010, when we first started with this project, we would talk about it, too, mainly because of that contained space. If I needed to summarise it somehow, I would say that this film takes place in a world where the big catastrophe, the Third World War – who knows – has already happened. And the next question is: what next? How do we move forward, and is it even possible? There must be hope, as they always say it dies last, but how does it look in that case? If everything is destroyed and only people remain, what matters?

Did you always want to have an international cast? Thomas Kretschmann shows up as well.
We knew they would be coming from different places. But I worried a little because I didn’t want it to feel like an “international space station” where there is one Russian, one American and one guy from Japan. I just don’t believe things like that. There are international space stations, but whenever I see them in films, I immediately start to wonder if it was a money thing. So yes, they have different backgrounds, but I didn’t want to push it too much.

It’s always curious to see what is happening to European genre films. While festivals are becoming more open to them, did you envision it as something for cinema or for streamers?
Distributors don’t know how to sell these films. This one is not pure genre; it’s somewhere in the middle, which makes it tricky. Again, we started back in 2010, when the world was completely different. In 2023, you are really lucky if you get your film into cinemas. We showed it in Estonia, and we got a limited theatrical release in the USA, as luckily, our contracts were drafted pre-pandemic [laughs]. Now, cinemas are for bigger films – for Marvel. Which is sad, but that’s the reality.

It's very intimate, with a focus on psychological drama. What did you like about that modest scale, apart from any budgetary perks?
To me, the main threat really does come from the inside. I haven’t made that many films – this is my second feature – but I am always interested in that. For me, it’s all about the characters. And the actors, because I love working with them. I always wonder, before committing to anything, if there is something interesting for them to do. That already pushes the story in directions where you can feel the tension. Some internal shit needs to be going on. During the premiere, I noticed I was really interested in the pauses, the moments of silence. Good actors like that, too, I think. It gives their audience something to think about. I heard that Benicio del Toro just looks at pages and pages of dialogue and goes: “I can do it without words.”

Maybe he just avoids doing his homework. When people show post-apocalyptic worlds in films, it can be very dramatic. It’s not that dramatic here, and it’s more reflected in how resigned they all are.
That was always one of the questions when we were developing the film: how much should we know about this world, about what happened? But once you start dishing out too much information, once you start asking questions, then you need to know even more. I prefer to leave hints instead. It’s a post-apocalyptic universe, but I knew it had to be close to what we know – it just went back to analogue. It’s not Mad Max; we are not there yet. We are on our way, maybe, but I am not even sure if we will reach that point. It’s too late, in a way – they can’t save the world any more, so there is this question about how to move on.

Or whether there is even a point – after all, so much has been destroyed.
In this environment, if you have a cup and it breaks, there are two possibilities: either you don’t have a cup any more, or you fucking glue it back together. There are no shops, no chance to buy a new one! When one of them gets hold of a furniture catalogue, that’s like the book of the lost world. When we started this film, people weren’t that climate-conscious. It was before Greta Thunberg, before Trump. So maybe it’s a better time for this story? Maybe it’s not such a bad thing that it took so long, because it’s more relevant now, also with what’s happening in Ukraine. Unfortunately, it’s even closer to reality now.