Estonian filmmaker Janno Jürgens' No Me Without You has been selected for the Official Competition of the 30th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (6-22 November), where it will celebrate its world premiere (see the news). The psychological thriller follows two sisters whose lives collide after a fatal event, bringing buried secrets, desires and rage back to the surface.

The film, set in the Estonian countryside, centres on Katrin and Mari, two estranged sisters who find themselves reunited by a tragic event which forces them to confront a bond shaped by both love and resentment. As hidden tensions emerge, guilt and moral ambiguity begin to blur the boundaries between loyalty, revenge and forgiveness. Their confrontation develops into a haunting emotional journey that explores difficult life choices and the limits of humanity.

The main cast includes Eva Koldits (Mo Mamma, The Black Hole) as Katrin, Mari Abel (Free Range, Sandra Gets a Job) as Mari, along with Andres Mähar (Take It or Leave It) as Raivo and Katariina Unt (Lioness, The Exalted) as the investigator.

Jürgens directs from a screenplay he co-wrote with Anti Naulainen. He developed the project around the mysteries involved by family ties and the forces that can drive people apart, placing the story in a rural environment he describes as a “Nordic jungle” where the characters' everyday reality is informed by nature, work and generations of accumulated knowledge. Against this primal landscape, the sisters' conflict unfolds through tragedy, desire and rage, with their surroundings closely tied to their emotional state.

Janno Jürgens, a graduate of the Baltic Film and Media School, has worked as a screenwriter and director for more than a decade. His short film Distance premiered at the Locarno Film Festival in 2012, and he made his feature debut, Rain, in 2020. He is currently developing his third feature, The Man Who Wasn't Meant. The cinematography of No Me Without You has been entrusted to Erik Põllumaa, who already worked with Jürgens on his first feature, and the music to composer Maarja Nuut.

No Me Without You was produced by Marju Lepp and Manfred Vainokivi for the Tallinn-based company Filmivabrik. French outfit Loco Films handles international sales, and Acme Film is the Estonian distributor.