{"id":5004,"date":"2025-05-14T13:02:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-14T13:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/?p=5004"},"modified":"2025-05-14T13:02:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-14T13:02:09","slug":"transilvania-international-film-festival-spotlights-estonian-cinema-at-upcoming-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/?p=5004","title":{"rendered":"Transilvania International Film Festival spotlights Estonian cinema at upcoming edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

Estonian cinema will take center stage at the 24th edition of the Transilvania International Film Festival <\/em>(TIFF) in the Focus Estonia<\/em> program, presenting a curated selection featuring both recent releases and rediscovered classics, screened in restored versions.<\/p>\n

Among the films to be screened is Moonika Siimets’ The Black Hole<\/em> (2024), a dark sci-fi comedy inspired by short stories of Estonian writers. The film follows a cast of eccentric characters whose mundane lives are thrown into chaos by aliens or a giant spider.<\/p>\n

As part of the Weekend at the Castle event, Rainer Sarnet’s Invisible Fight <\/em>(2023) will be screened at Bon\u021bida Castle. The film premiered at the Locarno Film Festival, where it won the Special Jury Prize. Sarnet, also honored in the 3×3 section, will be in attendance at TIFF to present two additional titles: The Idiot<\/em> (2011) and November<\/em> (2017).<\/p>\n

The festival public can also see Alien or: Valdis’ Escape in 11 Chapters<\/em> (2006), Rasmus Merivoo’s student short about a deadbeat who forgets all the things he loved, and its long-awaited sequel Alien 2 or: The Return of Valdis in 17 Chapters<\/em> (2024), where the protagonist discovers that his hometown is no longer what it once was.<\/p>\n

Leida Laius & Arvo Iho’s Smile at Last<\/em>, a landmark in Estonian cinema, will be screened at TIFF in a restored version. The film tells the story of a 16-year-old girl forced to survive in a harsh orphanage after the death of her mother and her father’s abandonment. Starkly naturalistic and featuring mostly non-professional actors, the film premiered at the 1985 Berlin Film Festival, where it won the UNICEF Award.<\/p>\n

Arvo Kruusement’s A Woman Heats the Sauna<\/em> (1979) will be screened as part of a double bill exploring sauna culture in Estonia, alongside Anna Hints & Tushar Prakash’s short Sauna Day<\/em>, “a kind of masculine sequel” to the multi-awarded documentary Smoke Sauna Sisterhood<\/em>, previously shown at TIFF.22.<\/p>\n

Also on the list of Estonian films screened is Rain Tolk and Andres Maimik’s Aurora<\/em>, following the daughter of a religious leader as she begins an extramarital affair that threatens her relationship.<\/p>\n

Two debut films add to the program of Estonian cinema screenings: Veiko \u00d5unpuu’s Autumn Ball<\/em> (2007), which won the Orizzonti award at the Venice Film Festival and also a cinematography award at TIFF in 2008, and Helen Takkin’s Life and Love<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The festival’s Coming Up Next section, dedicated to series lovers, features the first two episodes of My Dear Mother<\/em>, directed by Doris T\u00e4\u00e4ker. It is a Nordic noir-style thriller about a woman whose life spirals out of control after her mother’s death.<\/p>\n

This year’s TIFF takes place between June 13 and June 22 in Cluj.<\/p>\n

(Photo: still from Autumn Ball, courtesy of TIFF)<\/em><\/p>\n

simona@romania-insider.com<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Estonian cinema will take center stage at the 24th edition of the Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF) in the Focus Estonia program, presenting a curated selection featuring both recent releases and rediscovered classics, screened in restored versions. Among the films to be screened is Moonika Siimets’ The Black Hole (2024), a dark sci-fi comedy inspired […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5004\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}