After 11 days of international premieres, receptions and special events, POFF, the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, came to its climax on Friday evening with the announcement of its major awards at a ceremony held at the historic Russian Theater in the Estonian capital. With a local rock band providiing background music, the juries of the 14th edition made their announcements to the cheers of an audience of local dignitaries and visiting professionals from Europe, Asia, Latin Ameri...
A narrow body of water separates Estonia and Finland and the two cultures have been intertwined for centuries. This special relationship is again being played out with the Focus On Finnish Cinema program at POFF, the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, which continues through the weekend in the capital city of Estonia. The effort is supported by the Finnish Film Foundation, the Soome Instituut and the Embassy of Finland in Tallinn.
The program is a mix of contemporary and classi...
Six current Shooting Stars, an exclusive club of up-and-coming European actors that are selected annually by an international jury and introduced at the Berlin International Film Festival by the European Film Promotion organization, are making an appearance in films being shown this week at POFF, the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.
With a strong focus on European cinema both in and out of competition, the Festival is one of the places to catch current trends and ...
The European Film Awards, aka as the "European Oscars", will take place for the first time in Tallinn, Estonia as part of the final weekend of events at the Black Nights Film Festival, the Baltic region's largest and most respected film event. The star-studded gala, presented by the European Film Academy, kicks off Tallinn's celebrations as European City of Culture for 2011.
A large delegation of European producers, actors, filmmakers, distributors and industry p...
WHITE IRISH DRINKERS (John Gray, USA)
For the third year, POFF: the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, the largest and most influential festival event in the Baltics region, is opening its arms to embrace American and Canadian independent films. Eleven recent gems from such prestigious film festivals such as Sundance, South By Southwest, Montreal and Toronto are being showcased in the North American Independents Competition. The prize includes a distribution deal in the B...
THE DITCH (Wang Bing, China)
The EurAsia Competition, an eclectic mix of European and Asian cinema, is the main competition event at POFF, the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, which kicked off last week and continues through Sunday, 5 December. Beginning in 2004, the EurAsia Competition has become one of the unique elements of the Festival, providing a unique spotlight on quality European and Asian films for the Baltics and Scandinavian region. In this year's edition, 22 film...
Twenty film professionals from more twelve different countries will make up the 6 competition juries for films screening at the main programme of the 14th Black Nights Film Festival which runs from 24th November – 5th December 2010.
Concentrating on films from Europe and Asia, the International Competition EurAsia Jury will award a Grand Prix and jury prizes for Best Director, Actor and Actress from a diverse and excellent selection of competition films. The jury is made up of...
The snow is heavily falling in Tallinn, as it is across Europe, which has played havoc with travel plans for film professionals this week (I still am waiting for my lost suitcase). However, a big contingent of film professionals is expected in Tallinn this week to attend the professional events in parallel with POFF, the Black Nights Film Festival, which runs from 25 November to 5 December in the capital city of Estonia. Most professionals come from the Baltics, Scandinavia, Russia, E...
Christmas is coming a little early to Tallinn this year, as the Black Nights Film Festival kicked off its 2010 edition last evening with a contemporary Christmas tale. RARE EXPORTS: A CHRISTMAS TALE is the feature debut of Jalmari Helander, a Finnish director who has enjoyed a successful career as an award-winning director of television commercials. He has also made a series of award-winning short films in the run-up to doing his first feature, including the well received “Icema...
Animated Dreams, one of the most important animation festivals in the Baltic and Nordic regions which ran between 19th and 23rd November, has revealed the winners for 2010. The International Competition showcased some of the finest global animated shorts selected from more than 400 entries.
The winner of the Grand Prix, in addition to the Wooden Wolf made by Estonian puppet masters, received 1000EUR sponsored by Premia. The international jury members Wiola Sowa (Poland), Tatu Po...
In the run-up to the main event of international feature films that begins later this week at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, the organization is presenting several thematic programs. Just Film is devoted to films, videos and interactive projects for children and young adults. Animated Dreams offers a diverse selection of animation from around the world, as well as showcasing animated films from Estonia and the Baltics.
Running parallel to these programs is Sleepwalkers: ...
The tradition of animation, which has always been a strong cinematic element of Eastern Europe and the Baltics, is again on display at the Animated Dreams Animation Festival, which opens this evening in the cultural heritage city of Tallinn, Estonia. The Festival, one of five under the collective umbrella of POFF, begins its nearly-three week marathon of a diverse slate of films representing every cinematic genre and every corner of the globe.
Animated Dreams, one of the most i...
It is one of the longest film festivals on the international circuit......running from 19 November to 5 December, nearly 2 1/2 weeks. However, POFF, the local name for the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival in Estonia is actually several different festivals, each with a specific focus.
Festivities begin this Friday with Just Film, which is oriented to children, young adult and family audiences. To celebrate it's 10th anniversary, Just Film: The Children and Youth Fillm Festival (w...
Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival that ended on Sunday brought more than 260 films to viewers. Films from 75 different countries were screened in nine Estonian cities. For the first time films were also shown in Tallinn's brand new cinemas Artis and Cinamon.
Interview with Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival Drector Tiina Lokk by Bruno Chatelin
Hi Tina
What did the audience take from this year's edition?
"Most popular films were „Girl with a Dragon Tatto...
Interview with Kristo Toffer, Managing director of PÖFF from Tallinn Black Nights FF on Vimeo.
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Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival 2009
Iphone Gallery by Bruno Chatelin
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Soviet militia meets you at the harbour or airport and checks for the documents and passports of the tourists. He makes the alignment and suddenly he finds those 3-4 tourists who don't have visa. This is the reason to take the whole group to the interrogation in Soviet style prison. The group goes to the Soviet bus where militia is making the sightseeing tour. On the way to prison, the Soviet bus...
13th PÖFF's competition programme EurAsia awarded German-Israel drama „Ajami". Best Baltic film award goes to Lithuanian film „Vortex". Scandar Copti (Palestine) and Yaron Shani (Israel) realistic street-story „Ajami" was awarded as best Eurasian film. The film tells a story of a poor Arab district Ajami in Tel Aviv and its c...
(UNTITLED), a sharp comedy about the New York art scene, was the winner at the inaugural North American Independents Competition at POFF, the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival. The film, directed by Jonathan Parker and co-written by Parker and producer Catherine Di Napoli, was a major hit here in Tallinn, with capacity crowds attending sold-out screenings.
The film, which had a theatrical release in the United States via Samuel Goldwyn Company, tells the tale of a fashionable ...
DISCO AND THE ATOMIC WAR (Jaak Kilmi, Estonia)
One of the key purposes of POFF, the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival is the presentation of local Estonian and Baltic production to the international press and industry and, of course, for the public. Nine films in all were featured in the Tridens Baltic Feature Film Competition, with a strong showing from Estonia (by far the most prolific Baltic film industry) and representation from Lithuania and Latvia.
As Festival Direct...
This year, POFF, the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, made a real commitment to showcasing new independent films from the USA and Canada. Ten films were selected for the newly inaugurated North American Independents Competition, all of which do not currently have distribution deals in place for Eastern Europe (but hopefully that will change as a result of the exposure here). In all, 25 films from the USA and Canada, many making their European or Eastern European premieres.
In...
Party was held at Telliskivi: a former Soviet Electromechanical plant.
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Pics from the concert after-party at Club Korter following the European Premiere screening of THE PERFECT AGE OF ROCK N ROLL, directed by Scott Rosenbaum, produced by Joseph White and starring Kevin Zegers, Jason Ritter and Peter Fonda, with live music by the Sugar Blue Band.
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Harmonica blues legend Sugar Blue, a protege of the iconic Muddy Waters, rocked the house on Tuesday night in a wall-shaking concert held at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival to support the film THE PERFECT AGE OF ROCK N ROLL, an American indie musical drama that is making its European Premiere here. The film, written and directed by musician-turned-director Scott Rosenbaum, features a dynamic cast led by the twin leads, Kevin Zegers (of TRANSAMERICA fame) and Jason Ritter, who was...
The world premiere of a new film, particularly one from Romania, which has had a very high international profile of late, is a major event for a film festival. And here at POFF, the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, the arrival of a new Romanian talent, in a co-production that includes Romania, Moldova and Luxembourg, is an event worth noting.
Napoleon Helmis (born in 1969, Topana, Romania) graduated the National Theater and Film's Art University in Bucharest in 1996, where he c...