26th Festival in Pärnu
Legendary Estonian documentarian, artist, politician etc. Mark Soosaar lives in Pärnu at the Baltic Sea, and has since 1987 been, he calls himself so, “the chief” of Pärnu Int. Documentary Film Festival, the oldest film festival in Estonia. According to the website, “the aim of the festival in general is to support cultural survival of peoples. Only documentary films of high value and quality, recording human activities in social, historical or ecological context are accepted for competition screenings.”
This year´s festival starts July 2nd and has indeed a programme of high value, and many awards to distribute at the Museum of New Art on July 8th.
But that is only part of the festival, that travels to other Estonian towns until July 22nd, and includes the broadcast of six documentaries on Estonian public television, with the tv-audience voting for the best of these films on the last night. Great initiative!
Among the films at the festival are Michal Marczak’s “At the Edge of Russia”, “Vivan las Antipodas” by Kossakovsky, “Ballroom Dancer” by Andreas Koefoed and Christian Bonke, “La Machina” (photo) by Thierry Paladino – and in the Estonian competition new high quality films like “New World” by Jaan Tootsen, “The Russians on Crow Island” by Sulev Keedus and “Working Title: Wunderkind” by Marianna Kaat, all films that you will see on the festival circuit in the coming year.
