Mark Soosaar

… is a phenomenon. I have known him since the Balticum Film & TV Festival on the island of Bornholm in the middle of the Baltic Sea, going on from 1990-2000. He came there several times and 6 of his films were shown. He always came with his car on his way to Copenhagen or to Paris where he had things to do related to research for a new film or to his museum in Pärnu. It used to be called Chaplin Centre, now the name is simply Museum of New Art.

Sooo, filmmaker, art museum director and festival director of a festival that had its 28th edition this year in July. And on top of that, together with his wife Svea, Soosaar on the small Kihnu island Manija (35 inhabitants) has goats and sheep to take care of.

This is where we went for a visit. We (producer and cameraman Uldis Cekulis, filmmaker Kristine Briede, sound engineer Arvids Celmanis and me) came monday evening and left tuesday morning. Soosaar showed us around, milked a goat, great taste and talked about his current filming on the bigger Kihnu island. 3 half hour

documentaries are being made about the life of kids. On the 1st of September he had filmed the first school day. We were on a research trip for a film about the masters of the poetic cinema in the Baltic countries, and Soosaar is the obvious choice for Estonia. His many films about Kihnu are clear witnessing his respect for history and tradition and the lives of human beings.

On the photo (taken by Cekulis) you see the setting for the conversation we had late evening at the fire (Svea on the left, then Soosaar and me). Most of the talk was about Soosaar’s engagement in the situation in Ukraine. In his art museum in Pärnu, that we visited tuesday morning, he has every year what he calls a nude art show, ”Man and Woman” – this year he changed the perspective inviting Ukranian artists to exhibit their works in the museum, a fine gesture of solidarity that was followed up by legendary Czech photographer Jan Saudek and his wife Sarah, whose nude photos were sent to the exhibition, an equally fine sign of support for the Ukranians in their fight against the Russians.

Mark Soosaar, born 1946, is a young man with an incredible energy and a true believer in art, be it film or visual art or the radio broadcasting he does once a week, in Kihnu language!