Hannes Võrno

Rylan Clark-Neal narrates a guide to all things Eurovision and takes a sideways look at the greatest singing contest on the planet. The A-Z of Eurovision features all the disasters, the costume changes and memorable musical moments from 65 years of Eurovision.

Eurolaul was an annual televised competition to select a song to represent Estonia in the Eurovision Song Contest made by the Estonian Public Television Service ETV. For many years the competition differed from the national selections of most other countries in that the outcome was solely determined by an international jury. The rules were changed to entrust the Estonian public with the choice by means of televoting in 2004 and 2005, but due to the disappointing results in the ESC in those years there was a return to the former system in 2006. Eurolaul also selected Tanel Padar and Dave Benton's song "Everybody" in 2001, which went on to win the contest for Estonia. In 2009, Eurolaul was discontinued after a long period of bad results for Estonia in the Eurovision Song Contest and was replaced with a new contest entitled Eesti Laul.

In the summer of 2001, six prominent men moved into an abandoned farmhouse for a week. Following the example of the world-famous reality series "Survivor", everyone was allowed to take only one item they loved. The aim of the men was to test whether it is possible to cope with the minimum wage in today's Estonia, and if so, in what way. "Jürgensonid" is a humorous, fully documentary television study of survivors in local Estonian conditions.

Jan Uuspõld is a talented actor who is not up to scratch due to his problems with alcohol. He makes up his mind to stop taking clownish roles and accepts a serious part in a play at Vanemuise theatre instead. His journey from Tallinn to Tartu becomes an unusual and in a way exaggerated voyage depicting the life and mentality of contemporary Estonia through various human natures, attitudes and ways of thinking.

Young and active nationalist Aleksander Kesküla makes up his mind to use Lenin, the Bolsheviks' leader, in order to start a revolution in Russia with German money and create a new national state of Estonia in the north-east of Russia. For security reasons, five doubles will be found and trained for Lenin. All of them are finally sent to Russia to instigate the revolution. How will the real Lenin put up with all this?

Politician Aadu Kägu goes to the mushroom forest with his wife Viivi to rest his nerves from the reputation campaign. They are joined by a voter, penniless rock star Zäk. In order to avoid common mushroom forests, they drive to some countryside at random. Soon the trio discovers that they are lost, at the same time a media scandal breaks out - the investigative press suspects that Kägu has misused state money. The fight for honor, life and death begins, both in the forest and in the city.

Half the film was shot with a video camera taken from a television station without permission, the cast and staff were unpaid, and the script was written as a screenwriting class assignment.

At the end of the 1920-s the Finnish government proclaimed dry law which lasted 12 years. Estonian bootleggers living on the neighboring coast of the Gulf of Finland profited from prohibition......

Kreisiraadio was an Estonian comedy act, made up of Hannes Võrno, Peeter Oja and Tarmo Leinatamm. They have been around since 1993 with radio and TV sketch shows. Their sketches have introduced the hazardous sport of stoneball, the character of the arrogant man with a flat hat and that of Alev Ström, the Estonian immigrant in Sweden talking nonsense Swedish much in the same way that their Eurovision Song Contest 2008 submission "Leto svet" (Summer Light) uses nonsense Serbian (along with Finnish and German).