The banter of three teenagers gets out of hand and no one is brave enough to stop the downward spiral as an innocent flirtation turns into a violent power game.
Kopli Kinokompanii was established at the end of 2006 by two film producers: Anneli Ahven and Kaspar Kaljas, with the aim of establishing a creative environment for various documentary and feature film projects. Since then, more than 15 films have been completed and brought to audiences in cinemas and on television. Today, Kopli Kinokompanii produces feature and documentary films and provides professional production services for promotional, feature film and TV productions in Estonia. They have a solid record of successful international productions with companies from Scandinavia, Central Europe, Australia and North America.
Madli Lääne is an Estonian film director, writer and editor. She holds an MFA in Film and Media Production from the University of Texas at Austin, USA (2017), where she concentrated on fiction directing. Her thesis film, the coming-of-age short fiction Three August Days (2018), has screened at more than 50 international film festivals and won eleven awards, including Best Children’s Film at Uppsala International Short Film Festival and Best Short Film at Valletta Film Festival. Her short documentary ABC (2012) was one of the five nominees for the Berlin Today Award at Berlinale.
Anneli Ahven read German Studies at the Estonian University of Humanities and Film Production and Film Studies at the University of Hamburg, Germany. She is a member of the Estonian Film Producers Association; an Associate Professor and Head of Production Studies at the Baltic Film and Media School; Producer of On the Move 2010 / European Film promotion initiative during the Cannes Film Festival; a member of the European Film Academy and an ACE Producers member 2017/2018.
Mary Holland is a studio typist during the Golden Age of Hollywood of the movies. She has big writing and directing aspirations, but no-one seems to pay serious attention to a young female typist; she definitely needs to take matters into her own hands. This is her animated story.
Scheriaa Productions is a new Estonian film production company with the aim to operate in both live-action and animation projects that connect creative artists around Europe, and place emphasis on the story development side of each project first. It has produced one 2D animation short Verikoka, with another one in production – The Sea Tranced Isle.
Kamila Kučíková is a Slovakian director and animation professional. She holds an MBA (Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia) and an MA in Fine Arts (Estonian Academy of Arts, Tallinn, Estonia). She has worked as an illustrator and has directed the animated films In Line (2014), Inwentors (2014) and 300g/m2 (2018), which screened at international festivals. Since 2015, she has worked as an animation film programmer for film festivals, such as Fest Anča and PÖFF Shorts Film Festival.
Vassilis Kroustallis is a Greek film and animation professional and scholar, now resident in Estonia. He has studied Classics, Philosophy (Greece/UK) and Film Journalism (Glasgow University). He is the Head Editor of the online animation news magazine Zippy Frames, and (since June 2019) he is the Animation Program Director at PÖFF Shorts Film Festival. In 2016, he started his own Estonian production company, Scheriaa Productions, while his short screenplay The Hotel has received awards and placements in international competitions. Mar[t]y is his directorial debut.
Mia and Liki is a film about the break-up of parents through the eyes and cognition of children. Life changes, the child seemingly adjusts when it comes to activities and routine. But what is going on in the girl’s soul and how big is the loss really?
Kinosaurus Film is an Estonian film production company established in 2011. In 2016, they released The Days that Confused by Triin Ruumet, which won the Special Jury Prize in Karlovy Vary and six national awards, including Best Film. In 2017, the feature The Man Who Looks Like Me by Andres and Katrin Maimik premiered in Karlovy Vary. The latest feature is a film for the whole family, Phantom Owl Forest by Anu Aun, which was the most-viewed film released in Estonia in 2018.
Katrin Tegova (born 1982) is a director and screenwriter. Katrin received a Bachelor’s degree in Dramatic Theory from the University of Tartu in 2005 and an MA in Scriptwriting from the Tallinn University Baltic Film and Media School in 2013. She has completed four short films and two feature films as a co-director and co-screenwriter together with her former husband, Andres Maimik.
Maario Masing is a young producer from Estonia. After finishing the Baltic Film and Media School, he worked for years as a line producer on several feature and short films, and also on multiple television projects. As a producer, he’s completed two feature films, The Man Who Looks Like Me and Phantom Owl Forest.
112 operator Lisa receives a call from a woman who lives in a house located next to the woods and claims that someone in a car is watching her house and has come to kill her.
The full-service video production company Dream Light Studio is based in Riga, Latvia. Founded in 2013.
Film director Vlads Kovalovs is an author of popular short movies, TV series, a lot of commercials and video projects. His debut movie Abort has more than 13 million views on YouTube, the second, more than 100,000, and the third, more than one million. He has received best short film and best screenplay awards at various festivals. Recently, he finished filming his upcoming short movie Shoot, which will have its premiere at the end of 2019.
Screenwriter, film producer, author, her debut book Missing, a psychological thriller, will be published by Latvian Media in 2019 (at the end of October, 2019). She is also author and CEO of Dream Light Planner – inspirational planners for women.
Indra is an artist in search of a flat in which she can raise her first child. It seems that she has found just the place – a dream-come-true property in the very center of the city, Riga. The online ad has a very curious title: Penthouse for short people. She heads to a private viewing of her possible future home together with her friend Baiba, who is an architect. The visit brings up her fears and doubts of what is yet to be. Even though on first glimpse this place seems to embody her ideal home, Indra soon realizes that her life is changing – it is turning into an endless stream of compromises and adaptations that just won’t fit in the Penthouse for short people.
Founded in 2012, ART SHOT is an independent production company, focused on developing and producing short artistic animated films. The founder and producer of the company, Agnė Adomėnė, aims to produce visually engaging animations with a potential for international co-production and distribution. In 2016, the first completed production, the puppet animation film, Ragnarok (directed by Urtė Oettinger and Johan Oettinger, a Lithuanian-Danish co-production) was awarded by the Lithuanian Film Academy as The Best Lithuanian Animation Film of the year.
Anna studied animation as a critic and theoretician for more than 10 years, alongside her work as the Head of the Latvian Animation Association and the curator of the short film program at Riga International Film Festival, Short Riga. Her first directing experience was a collaboration with Nils Skapāns in the puppet animation All My Friends Are Dead, where she wrote the script, directed, and created most of the set elements and parts of set design, as well as the overall visual concept.
The creative producer Agnė Adomėnė focuses on developing and producing artistic animated films. In 2012, she founded the production company ART SHOT, her first completed film Ragnarok (dir. Urtė and Johan Oettinger) was awarded by the Lithuanian Film Academy and selected by many international festivals. Two of her latest projects won the Baltic Pitching Forum and were selected for Euro Connection 2017 (The Juggler, dir. Skirmanta Jakaitė) and the European Short Pitch 2018 (Elena, dir. Birutė Sodeikaitė). Agnė is one of the founders and a board member of the Lithuanian Animation Association, a member of the European Animation Awards, the Lithuanian Film Academy and the Independent Producers Association of Lithuania. She was also a member of the Jury at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival 2018.
The short film The Deer captures two days of Hans’ life. He is 19, a youngster living with his family in a small town without any clear vision of what to do in the future. Hans’ parents are annoyed by this lack of action and by his refusal to grow up the way they would prefer. In a way, on an unconscious level, he feels more connected to the older generation – the 80-year-old Grandma and the Old Man, whom he meets in an apple orchard where he’s picking apples to earn some money. During a conversation with the Old Man near the orchard, he sees a deer. After a concert in a nightclub Hans falls asleep in a backstage room and sees a dream that makes him return to the apple orchard to meet and to become closer to the deer from the day before.
Woodpecker Pictures has produced a range of short and TV documentaries, as well as short fiction and is currently working on its first fiction feature film.
Kristīne Vītola was educated as a scenographer and theater director. Initially, since 2002, she was successfully working as a stage and costume designer for theater and cinema productions. Her director’s diploma performance The Potato Eaters (Kartupeļēdāji), premiered in 2013. Since then she has been active as a director, writer, set and costume designer of her productions, lately mainly focusing on scriptwriting, and film directing – now working on her fiction short film Meeting Again. Kristine Vitola’s main artistic belief is that “the logical perception of reality can be extremely flexible and therefore eternally interesting, though sticking close to the principle less is more is also very, very important!”
Lelde Prūse studied Cultural Management and Sociology. As a film producer, she is among the founders of the new and up-and-coming film production company, Woodpecker Pictures. As a freelance producer, Lelde has collaborated with other local film companies, worked with documentary theater, and produces the Conversation festival LAMPA – one of the biggest festivals in Latvia (more than 20 000 attendees at the 2019 edition of the festival).
The home of Haim (life, in Hebrew) – a demented 96-year-old man – is a strange time capsule, a maze of faded memories, a fusion of eras, continents, and traumas. Haim’s sick body and mind are failing him, and he is repeatedly falling down into the leftovers of his life: his bed, his smoking habit, a handful of painful formative moments, and a dark secret that tore his family apart. Haim is a faceless Alzheimer patient, a spy, a pro-athlete, a schizophrenic, a turtle, and a suspected child molester.
Embracing the Embarrassing is a boutique production company established by Yuval Shapira and Ilya Marcus. It focuses on producing unusual, thought-provoking, and heart-expanding visual tales.
Birutė Sodeikaitė, a stop motion animator, director and puppet maker, graduated from the Arts University Bournemouth in 2013. Since then she continues conquering the world of stop motion, working in different studios with different projects all over Europe.
An Israeli–Romanian, Brooklyn–Tel-Aviv based filmmaker. His upcoming short film Gila Who Walks Alone is a French-Israeli co-production, funded by the CNC. Yuval has worked as an editor for Pulse Films, Moxie Pictures and is currently editing Udi Aloni’s upcoming film. He has an MFA in Directing Fiction and an MA in Visual Anthropology.
A six-year-old girl, Laura, revisits the last evening spent with her Grandmother. While walking through her memories on an, at first look, casual and cozy Friday evening, the girl notices magical and mysterious details that lead to the surreal departure of her Grandmother. The untold secret she carries with the feeling of guilt is keeping the little girl uneasy until she finds her answers and peace in the broken glass elephant, now fixed. This figurine becomes a symbol of the memory and relationship between Laura and her Grandmother.
NGO Meno Avilys has operated in the audio-visual field in a targeted way since the beginning of its activities. The company has been acting in the area of film education and heritage since 2005. Since 2015, the NGO Meno Avilys started working in the field of film production, with the aim of promoting the Lithuanian film industry and to cooperate with young filmmakers. Recently, Meno avilys released its first feature-length documentary film Animus Animalis, and is currently developing a few short-animated projects.
Starting with a musical background, Dominyka studied a Theater Directing BA in Vilnius, Lithuania. Later she studied Jazz Vocals in Paris. Currently, she’s studying Sound Design at FAMU, Prague and also works on live-action and animation projects as a sound designer and a Foley artist. Since 2017, she has been co-writing and co-directing animated projects together with Vykintas Labanauskas and since spring 2019 they have been working together under the name of Glass Elephants creative studio.
Giedrė holds a BA degree in Cultural History and Anthropology and an MA degree in Arts Management. She has worked in film production since 2012. Giedrė produced a number of short films and the feature length documentary Animus Animalis (dir. Aistė Žegulytė), which premiered at DOK Leipzig, CPH:DOX, Hot Docs and other festivals. Currently she is working on two short animated films and a VR project.
During a sunny weekend at the seaside, a single mother, Aldona, prepares for the visit of her daughter, who is in the last days of her pregnancy. But instead of being helpful, Aldona becomes overprotective, when her daughter just wants to connect, not to be controlled. It’s a bright story of two mothers who have to let go of each other in order to grow.
Heads & Hands script house was established by emerging Lithuanian screenwriters in 2015. The company focuses on promoting a collective of Lithuanian screenwriters and playwrights, producing and presenting their works in cinema, radio and theater.
Birutė studied Screenwriting at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre and Intermediate Studies of Literature at Vilnius University. She has written a number of shorts, five feature film scripts and several theater plays that were all produced or are in production at the moment. Her feature screenplay Sasha Was Here, won the best screenplay award at the International Festival du Film d’Aubagne, France. She received the National Golden Cross award as the best playwright, and her play Therapies will be staged in South Korea this autumn. She is teaching screenwriting at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre and at Vilnius University. The short film Mothers will be the debut for Birutė as a director.
Courteous formality, allusive sexuality and mysterious nature entwine at the annual flower show of a manor house. In the middle of a perfect formal garden a Countess is yearning for love and motherhood, while a young girl is just about to bloom under the watchful eye of her over-caring grandfather. During the celebration, wild flowers are stomped to the ground. Where the young girl’s body lies, nature and fragile leg hair continue to grow.
Böhle Studios is a new boutique production house, founded in 2019, based at Böhle farm in Piikkiö, between Turku and Helsinki. The courtyard consists of a sound studio and stop motion studio, 2D work spaces and residences for accommodation. Böhle Studios was founded by Elli Vuorinen and Jani Lehto. They develop their own creative material, but are also open to co-productions and commissioned works. At the moment, Böhle Studios has a short animation and a TV series in development.
Elli Vuorinen is an independent animation director. Her works often balance between surreal, delightful and disgusting. Although her approach is often humorous, the films deal with significant themes of melancholy, solitude and hope. Elli’s style is versatile, ranging from stop motion to 2D animation, a blending of minimal and handcrafted. She graduated as an Animation Director from Turku Arts Academy. Her six previous films have been shown at various festivals and won numerous awards. She has done many commissioned works and worked on several TV and film productions as an animator, editor, director and designer.
Jani Lehto is the executive producer of Flower Show and the co-founder of Böhle Studios. He takes care of the financial administration of the production company and runs its sound department. Jani’s sound design works include a dozen animated short films and commissioned works for well-known commercial clients. His music has been released by several record labels in Germany, UK, Austria and Finland.
During the half-time of a basketball game the High Five Cam is on and now the audience is playing the main part on the sports hall’s screens. What happens when the only task is to “high five” with the person sitting next to you? High Five Cam is a short film of excitement, embarrassment, pressure and shame.
Tekele Productions is a Finnish production company founded in 2017. The aim of the company is to make outstanding film and TV productions for domestic and international audiences together with enthusiastic and talented filmmakers. The founder and managing director of the company is producer Miia Haavisto and the two junior producers are Marja Pihlaja and Julia Elomäki.
Anna Brotkin is a screenwriter and director, specialized in comedy. She holds a Master’s degree in Screenwriting from Aalto University. Since her graduation in 2016, she has been working as the head writer for the TV series Comedy Combat (Putous) and as a staff writer for several TV series, such as Idiomatic (Jättekiva) and Modernit miehet. Most recently she worked as a showrunner and head writer for her original TV series, Adults (Aikuiset). She has directed music videos and written short films such as #barewithme (#sovitus), which was selected for Palm Springs, Aspen Shortsfest and Tampere Film Festival, among many others.
Marja Pihlaja is a producer and filmmaker based in Helsinki, Finland. She holds a Master’s degree in Film and TV Production from Aalto University. She has produced several short films, such as Untitled (burned rubber on asphalt, 2018), #barewithme, Golgotha and After the Reunion and her films have screened at Karlovy Vary, Hot Docs, Visions du Réel, Aspen Shortsfest, Palm Springs, Nordisk Panorama and Tampere Film Festival, among many others. Marja is interested in fresh stories and filmmakers with a voice of their own. Marja also enjoys reading, good and bad jokes, and staring at the horizon.
Far on the other side of the galaxy, a planet is on fire. Children and adults are fighting for survival amidst the burning ruins. The leader of the nation, Lady Finland, has a plan: they shall go the happiest place in the Milky Way – Finland!
Founded in 2001, Aamu Film Company produces films of various lengths and genres. Their projects include The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki (1st Prize at Cannes Un Certain Regard 2016) by Juho Kuosmanen and the Finnish-Norwegian co-production Things We Do for Love (2012) by Matti Ijäs. Recent short films include Juho Kuosmanen’s The Moonshiners (2017), nominated for the Best Short Film of the Year at the Finnish Film Awards and Mikko Myllylahti’s Tiger (2018), which premiered at the 57th Cannes Critics’ Week.
Writer-director Juho Kuosmanen (b. 1979) is a Helsinki-based filmmaker. His previous short films have won several prizes at acclaimed festivals including Cannes Cinéfondation and Locarno. He graduated ELO Film School Helsinki of Aalto University in 2014. Along with his studies, Kuosmanen has also acted and directed stage theatre and worked closely with the avant-garde opera ensemble, West Coast Kokkola Opera.
Kuosmanen’s debut feature, The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki won the prix un Certain Regard at Cannes in 2016.
Otto Kylmälä is a Finnish filmmaker who studied filmmaking in the Czech Republic and the UK and directed commercials in Lithuania. His films have been screened at over 40 festivals and 5 continents. His latest film as a producer, The Moonshiners, was nominated as the Best Short Film of the Year at the Jussi Awards (the Finnish version of the Oscars) and is currently touring festivals such as Palm Springs, Chicago, Oberhausen and Tampere. He is the Vice President of the Finnish Critics’ Association and a member of FIPRESCI. He is also the artistic director of Loud Silents Festival and a film programmer at Kino Regina.
