Rain Simmul

Estonia tells the story of the tragic accident of the car-ferry MS Estonia, which deeply shocked the world in the autumn of 1994. Through the moving personal stories of victims, survivors, loved ones and investigators, the eight-part series explores how it is possible that 852 people lost their lives and no one is held accountable.

Juhan Liiv, a struggling poet and an unlikely detective, solves gruesome murder cases in Estonia, the Wild West of the crumbling Russian Empire in the 1890s. Investigations take him to miserable dwellings of the local Estonian peasants, luxurious castles of German nobility that have sworn allegiance to the Czar, and to the depths of ancient forests where witchcraft is still practiced. Juhan is fighting crime and his own inner demons. He is considered mad and pronounced crazy. But by standing for justice and truth, at the end of the day, he is the sanest of them all.

The events of the war in 1944, from the Blue Hills to Sõrve Peninsula. Shown through the eyes of Estonian soldiers who had to pick sides and fight against fellow brothers. Choices have to be made, not only by the soldiers, but also by their loved ones.

Fleeing from the Russian secret police, a young Estonian fencer is forced to return to his homeland, where he becomes a physical education teacher at a local school. The past however catches up and puts him in front of a difficult choice.

In the middle of the night, a drunk town guard happens to meet the daughter of a rich merchant… who drowned herself into a well 10 years ago. Soon after the town guard falls dead from the tower. This is followed by two other suspicious deaths. Doubting the existence of the ghost, Melchior has a hunch that these ‘accidents’ are part of a heinous crime. Tracking down the killer, his path will cross with heretics, old feuds and dark family secrets.

The mystical and thrilling drama asks what sort of reality can give our life meaning. The film tells the story of Pia (38), an ophthalmologist, whose marriage has recently ended because she was not able to have children. As she strives to move forward with her life, Pia learns the unknown but also finds her inner strength. Unexpectedly, her deepest wish to become a mother materializes, but not quite in the way she imagined it.

After surviving a deadly attack, a guard on the Soviet-Chinese border decides to become a monk but must continually prove along the way that he's capable of becoming the enlightened man he set out to be.

Mattias has a dream to become a photography student of the Berlin Arts Academy. On the journey of following his calling, his dream is constantly put to a test after Mattias falls in love with a beautiful free spirit Hanna. Trying to win her heart, Mattias feels the need to prove Hanna, that he can be just as adventurous and unpredictable as she is. Breaking the law together with Hanna, Mattias risks everything dear to him, not knowing yet, that Hanna's bold acts are only the symptoms of bipolar disorder. In the moment of jelousy Mattias accidentally commits a crime that could put him behind bars for years. The only escape he sees is to get himself declared irresponsible. In order to achieve that Mattias decides to start faking the illness her gilfriend really has - bipolarity.

A young Estonian goes to the Siberian Taiga to live as a hunter in a remote forest hut. He hopes to find his true self far from civilisation. The natives he meets introduce him to the myths of the north. The first is a young village teacher who wants to be a good wife to him. The second is a wild and untameable native who becomes his mythical bear-woman. When he accidentally kills a great black bear, his own shadow-creature, he burdens himself with guilt. However, he is given a chance of finding his inner balance. A romantic drama with mythical elements and breathtaking landscapes.

A film about the life of Raimond Valgre, an Estonian songwriter and singer of the 1930s and 40s, the political changes of his country and his life after the war when his songs were considered not suitable for the Soviet way of life.

On one summer evening, four strangers are brought together by a mysterious murder. A case which at first seems like a regular crime investigation turns out to be something more - a tale of love, alienation and new hope.

The young country of Estonia is dancing to the jazzy tune of the 1920's when on December 1, 1924, the capital Tallinn is overrun by members of the Comintern in an attempt to stage a Communist coup. The film follows the fates of a young soldier called Tanel and his wife, a telephone operator named Anna, amidst the ensuing chaos which determines whether the country remains independent or becomes a minor province in the Communist Empire.

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.

A snapshot of one segment of Estonian present-day life, shown through the eyes of a child: 8 years old Lucia is leading a jolly and naughty Pippi-Longstocking-style life in a small town in Estonia. Her father Kaido, a graveyard keeper, can hardly provide for the family, her mother Maria is a drunk. Then the family receives an unexpected invitation to spend a week in Finland, in the house of the female pastor Sipra. This week will change everybody's life in unexpected ways...

When a former fistfighter Madis leaves the prison, he feels he will get another chance in life. Nothing can go wrong this time. Madis will be accompanied by his nephew who has something completely opposite in his mind. A game begins where both the weak and the strong get more and more opportunities.

As a young woman, Claire left her hometown in disgrace. Now she is old and unimaginably rich, as for the first time she returns. The town is nearly bankrupt and in urgent need of money. Everybody hopes Clara will come to the rescue. And she will. However, there is a condition: somebody must kill the man who was her lover all those years ago.

A rich businessman moves to countryside to give his life a meaning.

August 1991, military coup d'etat in Moscow. When Soviet tanks are on the streets of Tallinn, Estonia, all hopes for independence seem to be lost. People in the only local television station, ETV, are facing their own choices.

In Soviet Estonia, one woman's tragedy intersects with a doctor's inner struggle: to obey the orders of an authoritarian system or risk losing everything in the name of truth.

A historical costume drama where the fragments of the adventurous lives of Bernt Notke, one of the most influential Late Gothic painters, and carpenter Michel Sittow are brought together by the story of the panel painting "Danse Macabre" by Notke and the way the painting reached Tallinn, Estonia from Lübeck.