Sulev Keedus

In Paradisum relates two disturbing stories simultaneously. The female narrator tells her personal tale of imprisonment as the wife of the notorious Estonian serial killer, Andreas Hanni. Although her story is bizarre, it touches familiar themes that run throughout modern life: the desire to be loved and the fear of being alone. Pille Hanni's tale unfolds over cinema vérité images of life in several Estonian prisons. At times the images reflect in a literary way the events of the narration, yet they are representations and impressions, rather than traditional documentary style footage of the people involved. This opens the story to a more general interpretation, often with unsettling results. The parallel contents reveal, at two levels of story and social organisation, how the bizarre and inhuman can be tolerable and even addictive in the face of our fears.

The action takes place in post-World War II Estonia. An old man lives alone on a deserted island which the Soviet fighter planes use for nighttime target practicing. A young neglected boy, who has become mute, is banished from the mainland and sent to the island to keep the old man company. Both are haunted by memories, the boy about his mother and the old man about the years before World War I he spent as a young missionary in Africa

Jeremia Juunas Kirotaja has been fighting in Afghanistan; 21 years later he returns to Estonia to his father's funeral. He has converted to Islam and his only connection to his native land is the sound of his daughter Angel's crying that he heard a long time ago on the phone. Jeremia starts to search for his family. The daily life - if this can be called life in the first place - of the dusty and abandoned town is being run by women since men are almost gone. Nevertheless, the women seem to hope that Jeremia will be able to do something about it in order to remove the paralyzing feeling of emptiness.

50s quiet Estonian town. After a long separation, two brothers met in their parents' house. The younger one, Ilmar, a formerly capable artist, has just been released under an amnesty from a camp where he ended up for some youthful prank. Older brother Alex, by nature a more reserved person who prefers to find compromise solutions, is the complete opposite of Ilmar. The meeting of the brothers develops into a conflict, complicated by the fact that Ilmar got in touch with repeat offenders in the camp, and now they are threatening him with violence.

A poetic feature-length documentary made up of short vignettes, it is the story of Gypsies who always carry their homeland with them. Estonian and Russian-speaking Gypsies have been living in Estonia throughout fifty years of Soviet occupation. Through the colorful gypsy characters, the culture and vitality of the nation unfolds.

This is a film about Juhan Peegel, a linguist and lecturer, professor and writer, a former soldier. Against the background of all these facets, the viewer is presented with an amazingly simple and modest human nature, who values ​​the warmth of home and the land of his birth above all else.

The film consists of three chapters. The Manslayer takes place more than a hundred years ago. The leading character Maara is a young bride who is about to start her life in her new family. The Virgin, set in the spring of 1949, tells the story of a young woman called Elina, who has been deported from Ingria into Estonia during the previous war. The Shadow moves in the present, on the border of real life and fantasy. The main character, Luna Lee, has decided to flee from home. Is there anything besides emptiness somewhere? The film is led by the singularity of the leading character - Maara, Elina and Luna Lee are all played by the same actress.

The small town locals of Mustjala are the Indians of Estonia - they are ravaged by alcoholism and depression, because they've been ignored by the shiny capitalist dream. But then a German tourist ship boards in Mustjala. Could it be the realization of an old Estonian legend about a white ship coming from another land and bringing joy and prosperity for the local people?

A portrait about composer Galina Grigorjeva. Born in Ukraine, she studied at the Simferopol Music School and the Odessa Conservatory, graduated from the St. Petersburg Conservatory under Yuri Falik in 1991, and pursued her master`s studies at the Estonian Academy of Music from 1994 to 1998 under the guidance of Lepo Sumera.

This is not a biographical film about Veljo Tormis. This film does not browse through old photo albums, nor does it tell stories about the exciting events in the composer’s life. Tormis is sitting in his summer cottage, enjoying the silence around him. He says that he put a full stop to writing music five years ago. He does not create any music any more. Instead of facing his piano he is solving crossword puzzles.

A family comedy about a 7-year-old boy, who's a devoted viking fan.

In a Christian culture, suicide is a taboo, and a soldier's suicide is a double taboo. Rivo, who has been on a military mission to Afghanistan twice, suffers from a post-traumatic disorder, which ends in suicide. For four years, Rivo's girlfriend Hanna tries to battle his psychological disorder, but then gives up and moves from Estonia to Australia. Six months later Rivo steps in front of a train.

The small town of Iisaku in the middle of the large forests behind Alutaguse has long been known for its lively spirit and cultural-minded sense of life. The people of Iisaku talk about its past and present.

A documentary about the everyday life on a film set and the elusiveness that still confronts the artist and without the pursuit of which there would probably not even be failures.

Autumn 1944, Estonia. Tens of thousands of people leave their homeland in fear of approaching frontline. Some seashore villages remain completely empty. A young woman with huge grey eyes gets off the boat. Eetla leaves the last boat, thus giving up her last chance to escape. Defying the cold wind and rain of September, she returns to the lighthouse which is unexpected to her father Gottfrid, the lighthouse keeper, and herself. Eetla's return becomes her self-encounter and self-recognition.

The physionomy of a city through its people.

Pille, whose last surviving close relative is her daughter living in Finland, attempts to farm sheep alone while defying old age. Felix is worried about bees. Beehives remain empty, bee colonies are dying out, queens are not laying enough eggs for the new generations to hatch. Fields are being poisoned and primaeval forests are being clear-cut. Father Agaton serves small local Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church congregations, performs blessings, and administers Communion. The Estonian Defence League member Hellat and his daughter Kateriina look for silver, which is supposedly buried in the ground.

On the Eastern border of the European Union, on the River Narva, separating Estonia and Russia, lies Crow Island. The Krenholm Manufacturing Company founded on that island in 1857 was closed down for good in 2010. There is not a single family in Narva that has not been affected by the bankruptcy of the textile factory. Unemployed men, homeless children, street beggars, drug addicts, thieves—these are the people that live in this Russian-speaking Estonian town. It is like a bad dream. Where can they find salvation? Soviet nostalgia dies hard in this town, as does rage caused by wasted lives. How can they build new lives from these ruins? Is it possible to do the impossible?

A film about the lives, beliefs, and perspectives of the fishermen from Kaunispe, a small village on the western coast of Sõrve.