Today, the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival announced the line-up of its brand-new Doc@PÖFF competition. This non-fiction strand is made up of 11 titles, including six world and five international premieres. The 28th edition of the Estonian gathering will unspool from 8-24 November, while the festival’s industry platform, Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event, will run from 14-22 November.

The six world premieres include Yana Sad’s third feature, With My Open Lungs (Germany), depicting a deeply personal journey undertaken by the director, unfolding against a backdrop of chaos and a constant feeling of war in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; as well as local filmmaker Kullar Viimne‘s Torn [+leggi anche:
trailer
scheda film] (Estonia), a picture zooming in on a man living alone on a hill in the depths of the forest, left by his wife and their four-year-old child years ago, who now receives a call from his daughter to say she is expecting a child. The festival bills it as “an indescribable film with beautiful, sad and hopeful images”.

Also world-premiering is Takashi Sugimoto’s Black Gold (Portugal), a story set in a village in southern India following Saraswathi, a young mother who makes a personal offering at the temple, which promises to “blend minimalism with the beauty of rural India” and is billed by the festival as “a feast for cinephiles”. Filmed over four years, Max Carlo Kohal’s debut, Freight (Switzerland), tells a story about a teenage crew on a container ship and the close bond between them. Vytautas Puidokas’ Murmuring Hearts (Lithuania/France), the follow-up to his first documentary, Before They Meet [+leggi anche:
recensione
scheda film], unfolds amidst a desolate winter landscape in which 14-year-old Matas is brought to a farm, where a group of recovering addicts are seeking redemption. The last world premiere will be that of Lizhu Yang’s Never Too Late (China), which follows Deng, who divorces her husband, Yang, at the age of 80, after 60 years of marriage.

The strand will be rounded off by five international premieres, which include Marek Šulík’s Ms. President [+leggi anche:
recensione
intervista: Marek Šulík
scheda film] (Slovakia), a behind-the-scenes look at Zuzana Čaputová’s groundbreaking journey as Slovakia’s first female president (see the news); Victoire Bonin and Lou du Pontavice’s The Watchman (France/Belgium), which follows a Chinese family who have organised their entire lives with the sole aim of supporting the education of their only son, a student at the prestigious Beijing Academy of Music, who is now moving abroad to pursue his career; Maciej J Drygas’s Trains [+leggi anche:
recensione
intervista: Maciej J. Drygas
scheda film] (Poland/Lithuania), a found-footage collective portrait of people in 20th-century Europe, capturing their hopes, desires, dramas and tragedies; Alexandra Sell’s Ice Aged (Germany), which follows six men and women from all over the world, tracing their dedication to training at local ice rinks, up to a big performance at the World Hobby Figure Skating Championships at Oberstdorf in Bavaria; and Michal Cohen’s Full Support (Israel), which portrays women struggling to find the perfect bra, baring not just their chest, but also their soul.

The Doc@PÖFF programming team is led by Estonian documentarian, producer and professor Marianna Kaat, who worked alongside producer-director Mike Arnott, veteran programmer Edvinas Pukšta and Just Film Youth and Children's Film Festival head Mikk Granström. Kaat commented: “Our programming principle is to bring audiences cinematic, powerful documentaries that touch them emotionally. We want to offer films for both the eye and the heart, as well as to attract those audiences who have not been particularly enthusiastic about documentaries in the past. We offer both entertaining documentaries and something for cinephiles – particularly those who appreciate the craft and technique involved in filmmaking.”

Tallinn Black Nights festival director Tiina Lokk added: “There has been a long-standing demand on the international scene for a PÖFF documentary competition programme. Although feature documentaries have always been welcome in our sub-programmes, the number of submissions has increased significantly in recent years. Therefore, we are organising all of these submissions into a new documentary competition.”

Here is the section's full list:

Doc@PÖFF

With My Open Lungs – Yana Sad (Germany)
Never Too Late – Lizhu Yang (China)
Black Gold – Takashi Sugimoto (Portugal)
Full Support – Michal Cohen (Israel)
The Watchman – Victoire Bonin and Lou du Pontavice (France/Belgium) 
Torn [+leggi anche:
trailer
scheda film] – Kullar Viimne (Estonia)
Murmuring Hearts – Vytautas Puidokas (Lithuania/France) 
Freight – Max Carlo Kohal (Switzerland)
Trains [+leggi anche:
recensione
intervista: Maciej J. Drygas
scheda film] – Maciej J Drygas (Poland/Lithuania)
Ice Aged – Alexandra Sell (Germany)
Ms. President [+leggi anche:
recensione
intervista: Marek Šulík
scheda film] – Marek Šulík (Slovakia)