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DOCUMENTARY
NOTES FROM
THE WOODS
2025
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A meditative film journey takes the viewer to the Estonian forest, where large predators bears, wolves and lynxes go about their daily business. The action takes place in a forest clearing that is used as a feeding ground for eagles. Proud white-tailed eagles and exceptionally long-legged golden eagles feast on fish heads. Suddenly, the eagles flee because a wolf has come to the feeding ground. The wolf is very cautious because he knows that fish heads do not move on dry land, and their mover is probably somewhere nearby. The desire to make an easy profit overcomes fear and the wolf, one of the main characters in our film, grabs the fish head and quickly darts between the trees to sniff it out. The wolf's instincts do not fail him, the feeding ground is managed by a man who has a shelter at the edge of the ground, where he films the life of the animals. The forest dwellers go fishing one after another, sometimes alone, sometimes in herds, sometimes peacefully, sometimes quarreling with each other. The film shows intriguing, sometimes unexpected situations, without offering direct commentary. The viewer could get a feeling of immediate presence.​
TORN
2024
Kalju is a lonely arborist who lives on top of a hill deep in the forest. As if carrying a punishment, he drags long logs and heavy stones to his hill, like Sisyphus once did. Once Kalju was in love, once he got married and once he had a lovely daughter whom he admired very much. But he was heartbroken when his wife left him and took their 4-year-old child with her. Time has passed, but pain has remained. When the daughter finally calls him and announces that she is expecting a child of her own, “The Rock” (that is what the name Kalju means) is confused. For the first time in his life, he goes through his old diaries and recordings to figure out what went wrong 30 years ago. Against all odds and despite his age, Kalju has not lost hope of finding new love. To attract potential candidates, Kalju is going to erect the highest observation tower in the region.
TALES OF A TOY HORSE
2021
Anatoli, a former anti-Soviet activist who is now a monk and an artist, lives in an ancient stone tower in the heart of Tallinn. Day by day, he prays for nature and creates self-made books in his workshop. Many years ago, Anatoli made a vow to find something good in every day. The outbreak of war in Eastern Ukraine makes him leave the peaceful Estonian capital and go to the front-line towns with a mission to work as a volunteer. Since 2014, he has combined the spiritual life with social activism, constantly traveling to the Donbas to deliver humanitarian aid. His vow is being tested by the reality of the 'grey zone'.
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Directors Ulyana Osovska, Denys Strashnyy
Producer: Ülo Pikkov
Editor: Mirjam Jegorov
GENTLE WARRIORS
January 01, 2019
Documentary by Marija StonytÄ— takes us on the journey of a girl becoming a warrior in the military and in her own life. A few years ago military conscription for men was reintroduced in Lithuania.
Simultaneously, there were a number of young women who decided to voluntarily register for military service. We follow 3 of these girls for 9 months as they live and train among 600 men at an isolated military base. Three girls – three totally unique characters, come from very different social backgrounds. One joined the army with the aim of starting a new life, another - to find love, the third - to prove herself strong and able to defend her country from the possible threat of Russian aggression. Their romantic visions of being a soldier are soon altered as they begin their service and their expectations are challenged by harsh reality.
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Director: Marija Stonyte
Producer: Giedre Zickyte
Co-Producer: Vesilind OÜ
Editor: Mirjam Jegorov
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MIU
February 25, 2019
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NFTS Gradshow sponsored by Netflix
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These are the final days of Miu, a colorful young man who moved to London from Hong Kong to become an Architect/Artist. Combining dramatic recreations and interviews with the few people who knew him, 'Miu' is about the anonymity of being a foreigner in a big city and how easy it is to lose your way.
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Director: Yael Lotem​
DOP: Alana Mejia Gonzalez
Composer: Roshan Gunga
Sound Designer: Kevin Langhamer
Editor: Mirjam Jegorov
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COME BACK FREE
November 17, 2016
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A poetic documentary about life in a war torn Chechen village, with the cemetery as its symbolic focal point. The village lives and breathes in unison.
The Chechen gravediggers are always busy. Death is an everyday visitor. It does not even matter that yet another war has ended. The people live stuck in a circle of vengeance. They also gather into circles to chant prayers to God.
Only the cows are grazing calmly next to the cemetery and the children are happily going about their business.
The Chechens’ parting words to one another are, “May you come back free!”
Director: Ksenia Okhapkina
Producer: Riho Västrik, Vesilind OÜ
DOP: Vitaly Afanasiev, Maksim Drozdov
Editor: Mirjam Jegorov
Composer: Robert Jürjendal
GERASSIMOV'S WOMEN
December 30, 2016
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In an Estonian town Narva, elderly Russian ladies meet in a park. Each of them has her own path that has led them to this war-scarred town. Today the border separating Estonia from Russia is running just a few hundred meters from their homes. Only nostalgic, haunting or funny memories take them back to the Soviet realities of their youth. On the park bench the past and the contemporary, the sacred and the profane, two states and regimes mix into a fluid called life.
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Director: Birgit Rosenberg
DOP: Liis Lepik​
Sound Designer: Janeli Adremann​
Editor: Mirjam Jegorov
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PAPER TOWN
January 07, 2014
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Fyodor is recreating the past of Narva out of cardboard. Mats is designing the future of it, and knocks down old red brick buildings. They both have a love for the town. Russia took over Narva from Sweden in the Great Northern War in 1704. Since then, the rule has been passed over six times. Not only on the border of Estonia and Russia, Narva is also on the cusp of the past and the future. This affectionate film brings the town to life in archive material, in models and architects’ sketches.
Producer:: Jaak Kilmi
Director: Jaak Kilmi
Script: Andres Keil, Jaak Kilmi
DOP: Ivar Taim, Jaak Kilmi, Siim Sillamaa
Composer: Janek Murd
Sound Designer: Tarvo Schmeimann
Editor: Mirjam Jegorov
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CITIZEN OF SUN
2025
​The brothers Tarmo and Toomas Urb are musicians whose phenomenon in 1980s Estonia is difficult to overestimate. Performing romantic ballads accompanied by guitar, they were able to bring a full house to any concert hall. Tarmo understood that his talent could not be fully realized in the Soviet Union. However, it was not customary to leave the Soviet Union, the mere desire to do so was considered a betrayal of the homeland. After Urb, who had married an Italian, was not allowed to move to Italy for two years, he developed a defiance and an obsession with getting away at all costs. The result was arrests, two imprisonments, being declared a schizophrenic and forced treatment in a psychiatric clinic. With the help of influential friends, Tarmo finally managed to get out of the madhouse in 1987. Perestroika had already progressed to such an extent that the “schizophrenic potential traitor” and his brother were given a permit to travel to Finland a year later to record. With the help of the Finnish writer Harri Sirola, the brothers traveled to Sweden and only returned when Estonia was liberated. The documentary reveals the crushing nature of the Soviet Union and the functioning of repressive organs through many testimonies and documents. The KGB was the flagship for the harassment of dissidents, but the system also forced other professions and institutions to participate in the persecution.The film zooms in on Tarmo Urb's case, but his brother Toomas, with whom they lived in complete symbiosis for decades, is also an integral part of it.
WALKER ON WATER
March 7, 2023
“Walker on Water” is a film about being a woman, told through the life and work of Estonia’s most beloved and internationally most known contemporary poetess Kristiina Ehin.
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Director: Anu Aun
Producer: Maie Rosmann
DOP: Heiko Sikka
Sound: Indrek Soe
Editor: Mirjam Jegorov
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LINK
HIPPODROME
2021
An ode to a faded jewel in the heart of the Estonian capital – Tallinn Hippodrome. Once a majestic racecourse track, all that is left is a lonely horse stable. Today it has become a social club for bizarre parties, engagement photo sessions and a home for young girls and old men taking care of the remaining racehorses.
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Director: Vladimir Loginov
Producer: Allfilm
Editor: Mirjam Jegorov
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WONDERFUL LOSERS: A DIFFERENT WORLD
October 13, 2017
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They're called water carriers, domestics, 'gregarious', 'Sancho Panzas' of professional cycling. Always at the back of the group, with no right for a personal victory. These wonderful losers are the true warriors of professional cycling.
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Director: Arunas Matelis
Producer: AlgimantÄ— MatelienÄ—
DOP: Mark Olexa, Ivars Zviedris, Simone Rivoire, Giordano Bianchi, Valdis Celmins, Andrius Kemežys, Giacomo Becherini, Paolo Beniti, Vincent O’Callaghan, ArÅ«nas Matelis
Composer: Alberto R. Lucendo
Sound Designer: Raf Enckels
Editor: Mirjam Jegorov
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LINK
AFTER THE SILENCE
November 01, 2017
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After the Silence explores the spiritual impact of the forced disappearances that became endemic during Colombia’s civil conflict. It journeys into a world where government forensic investigators attempt to locate and exhume bodies from remote mountainside graves, where women remember and try to understand the loss of their relatives, and where nature itself has become the keeper of monstrous secrets.
As it immerses us in a world trying to overcome systemic violence, After the Silence invites us to reflect on mourning, history and death. If the mountains and rivers could speak, what secrets would they reveal?
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Director: Natalie Cubides Brady
Sound Designer: Ines Andriana Alves
Editor: Mirjam Jegorov
HEARTS OF SIRGALA
March 15, 2018
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"Hearts of Sirgala" lead us to the extinct mines of Ida-Virumaa, which has left more than a thousand inhabitants in the past decade. Today in Sirgala apartment buildings less than 20 people are living all year round. One of the main characters in the film, the 85-year-old Anna lives and carries Sirgala's four-story apartment building, where only one resident lives today.
The ghostly steam spill between the houses is spiced by Sillamäe's social worker Galina, who creates a social center with Sirgala with the support of church members from Norway. The film combines Sirgala's past and present, harsh reality, and magnificent future hopes.
Director: Mirjam Matiisen
Producer: Kristjan Pütsep
DOP: Alis Mäesalu
Sound Designer / Composer: Ann Reimann
Editor: Mirjam Jegorov
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CHRIST LIVES IN SIBERIA
January 27, 2015
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The charismatic religious leader Vissarion lives in an isolated Siberian village and calls himself Christ who has reborn. A religious sect consisting of thousands of followers has gathered around him, including Dmitri the bellringer and his wife Sveta who moved to the community with her three children from Saint Petersburg a few years ago. Magomed, the biological father of the children, writes a complaint letter to the administration of the President of Russia and insists that his children should be given back to him. Director Arbo Tammiksaar with his family moved to the Vissarions' village for a year. He followed the daily life of Sveta's children in the paradise garden found in the middle of Siberian taiga. How do they grow up in a community with unusual convictions in a place far away from civilization?
Producer: Margus Õunapuu, Kaarle Aho
Co-Producers: Tuuli Roosma, Uku Toomet
Director: Arbo Tammiksaar, Jaak Kilmi
DOP: Arbo Tammiksaar, Jaak Kilmi, Meelis Veeremets, Madis Luik
Composer: Andre Pichen
Sound Designer: Markku Tiidumaa, Kaur Kask
Editor: Mirjam Jegorov
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LINK
WHY DID YOU GET MARRIED
November 30, 2012
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Documentary "Why did you get married?" opens up the world of three young couples who are in the beginning of their marriage. Authors dilemma about her own relationship takes her to a journey to find answers.This is a story about falling in love, balance in a relationship, growing together and it's difficulties.
Director: Anniken Haldna
DOP: Janis Jurkovskis
Sound Designer: Ranno Tislar
Editor: Mirjam Jegorov, Kätlin Luht
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LINK
KELLY
Somone Else's Dream
2024
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WORLD PREMIERE in HotDocs Film Festival on May 3, 2024
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Documentary "Kelly. Someone else's dream" tells the sincere story of a young athlete, Kelly Sildaru, who at the tender age of 13 wins the X Games gold in slopestyle, the most dangerous sport of ​​freestyle skiing. Coming from a country with no freestyle tradition and no mountains, carving out a career in the relatively young discipline, pushing boundaries and braking records.
This is a painfully honest portrait of a girl who came through years of mental terror with sheer
positivity and hard work.​
PÄTT VÕI PÜHAK
January 14, 2022
Documentary of Raul Vaiksoo.
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Dirctor: Mattias Veermets
Producer: Karolina Veetamm , Editor: Mirjam Jegorov
Sound: Kauri Lemberg
Composer: Markus Robam
Color: Sten Lill
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LINK
X-TRILLION
2021
Director: Eleanor Church
Producer: Verity Wislocki
Editor: Mirjam Jegorov
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MORE INFO SOON
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NOW OR NEVER
February 25, 2019
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NFTS Gradshow sponsored by Netflix
Now Or Never tells the story of the Batang Toru Forest, which lies in North Sumatra, Indonesia. It is a forest like no other, and remains largely unexplored. Batang Toru is also the one and only home for the most endangered great ape species in the world – the newly identified Tapanuli Orangutans.
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The time to act and save Batang Toru is NOW, OR NEVER again will we be living in a world with a third orangutan species.
Director: Matt Senior
Editor: Mirjam Jegorov
Sound Designer: Kevin Langhamer
Composer: Adam Price
Marketeer: Alex Chronopoulos
WOMAN AND A GLACIER
November 16, 2016
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The Lithuanian scientist Aušra Revutaite has spent 30 years in the Tien Shan mountain range in Central Asia, straddling the borders between Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and the autonomous Chinese region of Xinjiang. Some 3,500 meters above sea level with only her faithful dog and grey cat for company, she studies climate change on the Tuyuksu Glacier at an old Soviet-era research station. She loves the solitude and silence that her painstaking work brings her. Magnificent shots of her surroundings and everyday work are interspersed with archive footage of the people who preceded her by a century. Not much seems to have changed. We see dripping, melting ice in imposing caves, streams flowing through desolate mountain passes, and Revutaite’s pets, playing together almost in silence. Living with Revutaite in the solitude she has chosen for herself, the two animals only have each other. The solemn silence of the mountains is punctuated sparingly by the music of a man far, far below, playing a traditional instrument.
Director: Audrius Stonys
Producer: Radvile Sumile, Studio UKU
Co-Producer: Vesilind OU
DOP: Audrius Kemezys
Editor: Mirjam Jegorov
Sound Designer: Seppo Vanhatalo
Composer: Robert Jürjendal
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ASH MOUNTAINS
December 31, 2016
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Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the population of the Ash Mountains has dropped by more than half, with no signs of growth or relief in sight. A place once known as the El Dorado of the proletariat has become synonymous with death and decay. However, legends remain: dwarves atop semi-coke mountains, exiles digging for forgiveness in pits, Mercedes-Cowboys roaming the night, and a magical bird, who must burn up to rise again.
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Director: Ivar Murd
Producer: Margus Õunapuu
DOP: Madis Luik
Sound Desinger: Markku Tiidumaa
Composer: Endamisi Salamisi
Editor: Mirjam Jegorov
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LITTERING PROHIBITED
September 02, 2014
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Lucavsala is an island almost in the center of Riga, in the middle of the Daugava River. In the 1930s, farms and cows were on the island. After the war, the island was divided into garden plots for Soviet large-scale workers. The spontaneous lifestyle in the Lucavsala Island Horticultural Opera opens through humorous details and contrasts. The protagonist Rasma, the 76-year-old horticulturist's self-proclaimed chairman, monitors compliance with the rules of charity, brings out lazy wines and drinks, collects taxes, and picks up his nose for foreign things. Now, however, real estate developers are keen to make the island a tourist attraction, where there are no pensioners or hippies who are aggressively struggling with the future of "Lat Vegas".
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Producer: Antra Gaile, Jaak Kilmi
Director: Jaak Kilmi
DOP: Jaak Kilmi, Aigars Sermukss, Davis Dorss, Ulvis Burjans, Aleksandr Kheyfets
Sound Designer: Aleksandrs Vaicahovskis
Editor: Mirjam Jegorov
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