Maria Aua

In a poor Estonian village, a group of peasants use magic and folk remedies to survive the winter, and a young woman tries to get a young man to love her.

An observational documentary by Maria Aua is about the reconstruction of the former textile factory into the Academy of Arts. The process of transformation is the result of the selfless and hard physical work of the builders.

"Roots" tells six very personal stories - a first, big love, the loss of a child, ageing, infidelity, fragile relationships with close ones. Six different views on what our family and environment has left in us and what we leave behind.

Stories about Tartu and Southern Estonia, capturing the tricks and mysteries about the arts of survival. Renowned filmmakers from Estonia and abroad bring us uniquely wild tales of people, communities, and the culture they live in. In these stories, we meet peculiar vehicles known as “karakat” from Peipsi, charming non-places of Tartu, the wild German woman living an off-grid life without water and electricity, mischievous goats and crazy village parties, the diverse Annelinn residents and nostalgic Petseri, slime mould and space exploration, and of course, the artists of survival from today and past.

A dreamlike passage through the architecture of shapes created from light and shadow. This film is a cinematographic attempt to find an invisible city that exists in parallel to Tartu.