TALLINN - On average, a meager three or four feature films are produced in Estonia each year. But although Estonian film financing increased by 20 percent in 2004, the industry needs to make at least five features a year to survive. That's according to Martin Aadamsoo, managing director of the Estonian Film Foundation. To do this, he says, it needs people with the right know-how.
Last month Aadamsoo's organization beat two rival bids to secure about 1 million euros from the Nordic Film Foundation to support the establishment of the Baltic Film School in Tallinn. The school is scheduled to open next year, as a cooperative venture between Tallinn Pedagogical University and Concordia Audentes International University.
"The contract for the school will be signed this spring. I hope the school will teach students to talk in a professional film language which will be understood by Estonian as well as international audiences," says Urmas Paet, Estonia's Minister of Culture.
"Last year, we carried out a survey of the media market," says Mati Heidmets, rector of Tallinn Pedagogical University. "We concluded that, throughout the Baltics, the demand to study media is currently far greater than the places available."
"We'll now have enough funds and facilities to give all people in the Baltics the opportunity to enjoy a modern, professional media education," adds Peeter Kross, rector of Concordia Audentes.
Resurrecting Baltic film
"Low budget, independent films are getting more and more recognition," according to Martynas Kevisas, a Concordia graduate from Lithuania, who now works at the London production office of Oscar-winning director Anthony Minghella. "It's a great time for new filmmakers to enter the main playground. If we have well-trained people in the Baltics, I don't see any reason why we shouldn't be there."
Another Concordia graduate, now foreign news editor at Latvian Television, Edijs Boss points out that local media organizations can't afford the in-house training facilities possible overseas. "The BBC has an entire department devoted to training," he says. "No media organization in the Baltics has anything comparable to that. A strong academic media school might be a solution. But in order to be on the map, it must amass pan-regional resources."
"This is an opportunity to resurrect the Baltic film industry," says Juris Kursietis, Estonian correspondent for Latvian TV. "We desperately need a place where the media's taken seriously. The Danes did it with the European Film College, and look at the success of Danish cinema now."
Janis Vingris is a young Latvian director who studied at the European Film College in Denmark. "The reason I didn't study in Latvia was that we didn't have enough resources to give a good education in real hands-on filmmaking," he says. "Each of the Baltic countries is too small on its own to have a proper film school. The new school should help us overcome the current negative opinions about the local film industries."
These negative opinions remain a central problem, according to Juri Sillart, who runs the film department at Tallinn Pedagogical University. The local film industry, which was established in the 1950s, is all too often considered a legacy of the Soviet era. "It's important to educate people about cinema, to overcome this stigma 's this original sin," Sillart says.
"Film art has deep roots in the Baltic states dating back to Soviet times," adds Latvian journalist Karlis Streips. "But in many cases today young people have to go abroad to study, and the opportunity to study at a professional level in Estonia should be very useful. The problem hasn't been the number of enormously talented people, it has been money."
TV nation
Streips's point is echoed by Ilmar Raag, director general of Estonian Television. Raag points to the case of one local TV company which, in producing a daily half-hour soap opera, can afford to employ the talents of just one writer.
"It says a lot about Estonian television," he says. "The quality's sometimes jeopardized by the economics."
The Estonian government plans to introduce legislation later this year that will merge the country's public TV and radio stations. This move is welcomed by Raag. "In order to get a critical mass for your message, you need consolidated action," he says.
The broadcasting bill includes plans to create service contracts between public broadcasters and the state. Raag is ambivalent about this. "The public needs to know what it gets for its money," he says. "But, if television's too closely connected to the executive power of the state, there may be problems of political pressure."
"Many European countries have started to develop this idea," argues Hagi Shein, dean of Concordia's Media School and a member of the National Broadcasting Council. "State aid to broadcasters should be accountable to the public. If we can establish good contracts, I hope the state will grant stable and sufficient financing to broadcasters."
However, Martin Aadamsoo warns of continuing problems in Estonia's commercial broadcasting sector.
"There's not enough domestic TV production," he says. "Commercial stations aren't doing enough, and the regulatory bodies aren't doing their jobs properly."
Hagi Shein doesn't disagree. "There have been different attempts to encourage commercial stations to put more money into domestic production, but we haven't been successful enough," he says.
Ilmar Raag argues that good programming is a matter not only of provenance but also of quality. "Prime-time is filled with locally produced programs," he says. "Even commercial stations have understood that local flavor can pay off. But Estonia has been overwhelmed by reality TV. If we just offer voyeurism, it makes TV output miserable."
But, as Martin Aadamsoo and Mati Heidmets insist, local media production remains a crucial factor in the Baltics' struggle to preserve their cultural identities.
"TV and film production form san essential part of national culture," says Aadamsoo.
"Film and television should be a means of self-reflection," adds Heidmets. "It's very important to have a media culture which documents the history and the current state of the nation."