TALLINN - The Black Nights Film Festival has grown to be arguably the most well-known Baltic film festival, making it onto the list of the 15 biggest international festivals in the world according to FIAPF, which puts them in some heady company with such famous film festivals as Cannes, Venice, and the Berlinale.
The festival has experienced a meteoric rise from its humble beginnings in 1997 when it showed 25 films up to last year when there were over 77,000 visitors that saw 551 films over a two-week long affair.
This year movie goers will descend upon cinemas and other venues in Tallinn, Tartu, Narva, Parnu and Johvi for the latest installment of the festival, with the focus of this year on Poland. The three international competitive programs (EurAsia, Tridens Baltic, and North-American indie films) feature some of the best films from around the world.
This year’s focus on Poland has led organizers to bring a total of 15 Polish films to the big screen during the festival, including such films as “Warsaw ‘44” directed by award-winning director Jan Komasa, a love story set before and during the uprising in Nazi-occupied Warsaw towards the end of World War II. The film has been a blockbuster in Poland, selling over one million tickets in its first two weeks.
The festival also includes international industrial gatherings like Black Market and Baltic Event, which are designed as meeting places for those in the film industry from the Baltic region.
In addition to the regular film program, there are three smaller sub-festivals – Animated Dreams, Just Film and Sleepwalkers. Animated Dreams is the biggest animation film festival in Northern Europe, with an international competition and a host of smaller programs, while Just Film is the largest film festival in the region focusing on children’s and youth films, with Sleepwalkers a student and short film festival that looks to show new film talent from the Baltic.
Nov. 14 – Nov. 30, 2014
Various cities around Estonia
www.poff.ee
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