A group of school kids gather in a bathhouse to have a party, during witch they drink alcohol and start discussing modern day politics. Ukraine crisis in particulary. They choose one kid with a Russian name to bully and accuse him of being a “Putin lover”. During the whole night things happening around them get overshadowed by this bogus discussion. Morning comes and everybody leaves, with no resolution to their political debate. Bathhouse owners come and start tidying the place up only to find an unconscious half-naked girl in the sauna. What happened to this girl? How did everyone miss her? Was there someone else in the party, whom nobody noticed?
This project was awarded with the participant rights in the European Short Pitch 2016 by NISI MASA.
Laurynas Bareiša holds a bachelor’s degree in both applied mathematics from Vilnius University and in cinematography from Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre. Currently he is continuing studies in Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre for a master’s degree in film directing.
Klementina Remeikaitė is a young film producer from Lithuania. This year she graduated Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, filmproducing. In 2014 director Marija Kavtaradze, director/cinematographer Laurynas Bareiša and she founded film production company Afterschool. Together they made 5 short films, the last one “I‘m twenty something” (dir. Marija Kavtaradze) won a national film award “Silvercrane‘s egg 2015” for the best student work. Now director Laurynas Bareiša is developing his second short film “Bathhouse”. Also their new project, first feature film “Leaving Vilnius”, was selected for scriptwriting workshops “EKRAN+ 2015” and “Maia workshops” for emerging European producers.
An aspiring cook Rimas is obsessed with carving beetroots into big cubes. He dreams of becoming the best cook in town. Unfortunately, no-one likes his work, so he has to find a way how to scale down his ambitions and accept that not everyone is cut out for fame.
Agustas Liiv is an award winning filmmaker. His most recent short film, “Bibendum”, was produced as a UK/Estonian co-production and was a winner in the short film category at an Italian film festival and was later distributed to the France2 TV channel. He graduated from London Film School and has experience in screenplay development and video editing. After graduation he worked for companies like Poker Starts Television, Sony TV and Content Film.
Lukas Trimonis graduated the Baltic Film and Media School in Estonia and the European Film College in Denmark. Developed theoretical production skills at Maia Workshops in Italy and received the European Certificate in Audiovisual Financing and Commercialization from the French National Audiovisual Institute. In 2011 he graduated from National Film and Television School in the UK. His experience ranges from producing numerous commercial projects including music videos, short films, commercials, viral videos to working within feature and documentary film production, co-production, financing and distribution. Currently producing his first feature film “MIRACLE” as lead producer, to be directed by Eglė Vertelytė, and works as a producer in “IN SCRIPT” (Lithuania).
TADAS, while waiting for his wife GINTARĖ to return, is visited by a beautiful STRANGER who kisses him and disappears into the woods. The next evening the stranger returns. Tadas’ daughter SAULĖ believing that the stranger is Laumė – a mythical creature from her books, decides to talk to her. The next day Gintarė leaves in anger due to Saulė’s mentioned stranger. Tadas spends the rest of the day with whiskey and cigarettes till the stranger returns. They both end up in bed, however Saulė observes them through the door. Gintarė returns and learns about Tadas’ infidelity meanwhile unnoticed Saulė follows the stranger into the woods. After intense arguing Gintarė accepts that the fall out is her fault as well. They decide to make up. Saulė’s hand slips out of the stranger’s palm and the girl returns home. The stranger disappears into the lake from where she might have come.
Ignas Veršinskas is a director/actor born in Šiauliai, Lithuania in 1986. After his business studies he went to Malaysia to study filmmaking in the Limkokwing University of Creative Technology. In Malaysia he mostly worked as an actor in multiple international projects as well as a director for several short films. He is a traveler, photographer and a musician on the side. His passion is fiction films exploring the unknown and the mysterious. Genres of his choice are adventure, mystery and sci-fi as they all deal with challenges that are not as often experienced in an everyday life. Project “Laumė” is a return to origins, back to Lithuanian land and its myths.
Eglė Burbaitė is a TV and cinema producer born in Vilnius, Lithuania in 1987. After her history studies she is now doing her MA in heritage in Vilnius University. Her passion for history, heritage and cinema always went together. Now she is actively working in the field of cinema communication. She is one of the co-founders of a cinema nws website kinfo. lt, author of many publications and photo seriesabout Lithuanian cinema, a journalist and a producer of cultural TV shows. Involvement in cinema productions led her to pursue a producer’s career focusing mainly on documentary films. Her last short film “Fellow Travellers” (Lithuania, 2015, director Linas Mikuta) received the award for the best student film in the International Vilnius Film Festival “Kino Pavasaris’15”. The project “Laumė” intrigues Eglė due to a yet not discovered mystery genre
and elements of Baltic mythology.
Anna (9) is eager to go sledging with her father, an artist and alcoholic. They meet and walk through a dark city. Passing by an artist shop her father decides to buy some paints but the shop is closed. Furious he grabs the sledge and throws it through the shop window, then sinks to the ground. Anna manages to lift the sledge out of the broken window and to put her father back on his feet before the police arrive.
Later, Anna waits outside a bar. An intoxicated couple comes by and gets into an argument with her father exiting the bar. He reaches a beer bottle to Anna but his opponent pulls his knife on him. Anna hits the bottle over her fathers’ head. The couple run off; Anna is left alone with her mumbling father. Anna valiantly gets her father onto the sledge and pulls him from the scene.
Adriana Roze is a film director and new media artist from Riga, Latvia. She recognized her passion for arts and cinema at an early age when her mother was working as a graphic designer for several film theatres in Riga. Even though her early formal training includes dance, music, theater and acting, at the university her major was philosophy and politics. The symbiosis of arts and philosophy is a recurrent form of expression in her documentaries and installations. In 2015 her musical documentary “Born in Riga. Behind the Talent” was nominated for the Latvian National Film Awards “Lielais Kristaps”. Night of the Horse will be her fiction debut.
Thom Palmen is one of the founders of the Umeå International Film Festival in Sweden. (1986-2007) “We started the festival because of the frustration that so many good films never reached any distribution in the cinemas.” He has been invited as a jury member to numerous film Festivals, notably in Berlin, Sofia, Regensburg, Dresden, Cottbus, Aix-en-Provence, Indie-Lisboa, Poznan, Bratislava, Hamburg, Setubal, Cork, Kinochock (Anapa), Tampere and Puchon (Korea), FESPACO (Burkina Faso). In order to help talented young filmmakers from the North of Sweden he started his own distribution company: Botnia Film. Currently he’s working as a curator for a number of festivals and parallel to that as a producer and developing projects within the field of the cinema. His first co-production, In the Theme (director Olga Popova, Russia) was selected and awarded at the Berlin Film Festival (Berlinale) Shorts 2008.
After the tragic loss of their son in the Boeing air crash over Eastern Ukraine in July 2014, Lucas spends all day long in her son’s room never going out. Her husband Jos, in an off guard moment, collects all their son’s belongings and donates them to a humanitarian organisation helping Ukrainian children. Jos is asked to join a delegation to deliver the humanitarian aid to the Ukraine. Well in place at the orphanage Jos meets a boy resembling his dead son. Jos can’t take his eyes off the boy and joins him playing football in the yard. With every minute that follows Jos gets more attached to the boy. While nobody is looking Jos takes the boy, OK with this, and they drive away.
Vera Yakovenko was born in Lviv, she started her professional activity as storywriter published regularly in Lviv’s University “Almanax” contemporary literature edition. Followed by MA film directing education in Kiev State Theatrical University she wrote and directed a number of award winning shorts. She gained professional experience in sreen-writing in “Binger Film Lab” (Netherlands), directing and producing in “Directors Across Borders” (Armenia) and “Young Professionals” program (Germany). Her postgraduate project “Blonde dies twice” won production award during Berlinale 2004 and was nominated to “Movie of a week Award”. Vera continued working as a director on TV episodes and documentaries in Ukraine and won Diploma for the best cast by Kyiv IFF 2009 for TV feature “Contract” and “Best Film Project Award” for “Outsider film project” at Odessa IFF 2012. She became an active member of Ukrainian indi filmmakers creating her short “Taxi?” for “Mudaki” short film edition. After completing social documentary for MTV-EXIT “Trading lives” in 2013 Vera’s creative focus are social subjects and human rights rights defense. In 2014 Vera together with producer Ludmila Kyrylenko formed a company “Mariposa Films” (Ukraine) that produces short films, social shorts and documentaries.
Ludmila Kirilenko was born in Kiev, Ukraine, she started her professional career as a lawyer and criminalist followed by German translation specialization. She worked as a coordinator in commission on questions of granting humanitarian assistance to Ukraine (2001-2003) and Head of advertising department: «Telemedia» Company (2004-2007). Further she gained her experience in media sphere working for media agencies, production companies as well as Ukrainian, German and Holland TV channels as creative and line producer, screen-writer and 1AD. In 2014 Ludmila together with director Vera Yakovenko formed a company Mariposa Films (Ukraine) that produces short films, social shorts and documentaries. Currently Ludmila is creatively focused on social documentaries, shorts and features with social subjects and human rights thematic.
Ruth is finding herself strangely attracted to her twin sister Rita, upon psychotherapist’s suggestion she decides to spend some time away from her. As the separation goes on, she starts feeling a troubling urge to return to her sister and restore their bond. Turns out Rita has already moved on.
Karlis Strautins is a graduate of Commercial Media Directing specialty in the bachelor programme at RISEBA. He also enjoys when people read about him in booklets, especially when he’s pretending that he hasn’t written it about himself. He aspires to become famous and rich by whatever means necessary, but for now he is giving short film directing a go. Karlis is a self-proclaimed cinephile and spends most of his time watching movies. Sometimes they’re not even his own movies.
Haralds Ozols has graduated Audio Visual Media Arts bachelor programme at RISEBA University. As an audio visual artist he has directed, acted, edited, shot and audio mixed different short films and TV shows. Now the time has come to produce his first short film so he can brag about himself even more. His dream is to reboot TV series “The Pretender” and cast himself as the main character, who can do any job in the world, just so he can call himself a method actor. Haralds is also a very passionate movie lover and tends to get angry with people who fall asleep or walk away halfway through the movie.
“How do you know who to blame for a bad movie, if you don’t see the ending titles?” – Haralds Ozols 2015
Middle-aged Helen, who still hasn’t gotten over the end of her marriage, is dragged to the night club by her girlfriends on the evening of her birthday. Unable to grant the life a new chance, she ends the night as an intruder in her old home.
Tanno Mee graduated from the Baltic Film and Media School in 2008 with a BA degree in film and video directing. During his studies at BFM Tanno directed three short fiction films: “Infernal Suspicions” (12 minutes, 2006), “Blind Dsin-Lu” (14 minutes, 2007), “House of Memories” (35 minutes, 2008) and developed a close collaboration with his fellow student, cinematographer Mart Raun. In 2010 Tanno premiered a short documentary “Being Normal” (28’), commissioned by Estonian Public Broadcasting, shot by Mart Raun and produced by Marianne Ostrat from Alexandra Film. In 2014, another documentary – “Allan Leida, Leida Allan” co-directed with Liis Nimik – premiered in the Estonian Public Broadcasting channels ETV and ETV2. With an interest in sensitive, nuanced drama, Tanno has been developing his first full length feature film – “30 Days With Isebel” (currently in financing phase) – with his collaborators Mart Raun and Marianne Ostrat since late 2010 and a short fiction “Birthday” since the beginning of 2015.
Marianne Ostrat has been working in film production since 2004 filling the position of production manager or producer on numerous short film, commercial, TV-feature and documentary shootings. In 2006 she graduated with a BA degree in Audiovisual Media from the Tallinn University and in 2009 with a MA degree in Film Arts with specialization in producing from Baltic Film and Media School. In 2008 Marianne won the Cottbus Film Festival GWFF Promotion Prize awarded to a promising producing student from the Baltics. After graduation she produced two documentary films now working on Tanno Mee’s short fiction “Birthday” and three feature films – microbudget existential comedy “The End of The Chain” (dir: Priit Pääsuke, in pre-production), “30 Days With Isebel” (dir: Tanno Mee, in financing) and a youth film “GrownUp” (dir: tbc, in development). Marianne is also the founder, partner and creative producer of Fork Film Animation Studio established in 2010, member of Estonian National Producer’s Union, EAVE and MAIA networks.
THE KINDNESS OF A STRANGER tells a story of two strangers, a young Estonian mother, INGA and Russian taxi driver ALEKSANDR making a life-changing journey on a spring day of the violent riots of the Russian communities on the streets of Tallinn. They experience the rare moment when enemies save each other‘s lives and become friends. Arriving home with a newborn child, INGA finds her Estonian husband in bed with another woman. The betrayal turns her life upside down and pushes her to the brink of suicide. At the last moment fate brings an older man, in her way the Russian alcoholic ALEKSANDR who’s just been thrown out of his home on account of being violent. The two drive through the riotous city and reach a cliff on the seashore. Suddenly, INGA makes a decision, gets out and disappears. ALEKSANDR gets panicky and decides to keep the BABY. But, by the time he really makes piece with the life changing decision INGA reappears. The ensuing fight brings them close to each other. They share their tragic life stories with each other and soon recognize, that the spark of love they discovered turned them from enemies into friends.
Epp Kubu is an Estonian artist. She has diploma from Estonian Academy of Arts in scenography BA and interdisciplinary arts MA. She studied a year 2004-2005 scenography in Latvian Academy of Arts. While being active in Estonian contemporary art scene since 2006 she has created set designs for more than 15 theatre, dance performances and short films and has participated in several exhibitions in Estonia, Latvia, Slovenia, Sweden, Finland, Lithuania, Czech, Germany, Austria. She is a an founding member of an collective of performing artists “Ten times ten meters” and Association of Estonian Scenographers. In 2013 she made her long-standing dream come true and started film studies in Baltic Media and Film School. Since then she has completed one short fiction film as a director and two short documentaries as director and cinematographer.
Gabriel Dettre, director/writer/producer, lived in New York City for many years, before moving back to his native Budapest. Presently, he is a visiting faculty member at BFM Tallinn (Baltic Film and Media University), teaching film directing. Gabriel Dettre produced CHICO (Hungarian German-Croatian-Chilean). The film won a Best Film Award in Karlovy Vary.In 2015, Gabriel Dettre co-produced ZERO, Gyvula Nemes’ German-Czech-Hungrian co-production feature. ZERO is in competition at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
Kertu Viira is a producer from Tallinn, Estonia. Having worked for different film and performing arts festivals in Tallinn and Helsinki she took up producing after graduating with a degree in culture theory leading her to work on many small-production independent films in the Baltic region. She is currently studying at Baltic Film and Media school and working on her first documentary.
In a hidden corner of the world there is a place where all impossible dreams come true. In a rainforest amidst lush nature fragile porcelain animals can be found. Strange white stony creatures are born in wild river streams, birds with feet like human fingers hunt for flying fish, vicious spiders catch miniature dancers into their traps…
This is a surreal world inhabited by creatures never seen before. Time here passes in a strange way moving in an unexpected paste. As the film is shot in nature the changes of light create a strange shift between the passing of time and the movement of the characters. Tropical nature, ceramic creatures, Estonian music and sounds of northern nature form a surreal world with bizarre sensation of seeing something unknown but familiar at the same time.
This project was awarded with the participant rights in the European Short Film Co-production Forum EURO CONNECTION 2016.
Anu-Laura Tuttelberg graduated MA degree in animation at Estonian Academy of Arts in 2013. She made her first animation “Fly Mill” (Kärbeste veski) a puppet film as her graduation film. “Fly Mill” has screened in numerous festivals around the world and won nearly 20 prizes. Her first film after graduation, a short animated film “On The Other Side Of The Woods” (Teisel pool metsa) premiered in June 2014 at Annecy International Animation Festival and has won three First Prizes and a Best Debut prize at festivals so far. She has made set designs for short stop motion animations such as “The Lemonade Tale” (Limonaadi lugu, 2013) and a puppet film “Tik-Tak” (2014) in “Nukufilm studio” in Estonia and It’s About Time (2014) in Atomart studio in Latvia. Currently she is working on a set design for a feature puppet film “Morten on the Ship of Fools” (Morten lollide laeval) in “Nukufilm Studio”.
