Tartu 2024 Arts of Survival Documentaries has selected eight filmmakers to capture Southern Estonia on the topic of “Arts of Survival”, the artistic concept of European Capital of Culture Tartu 2024. The selected authors will present Tartu and Southern Estonia in artistically exciting ways. The international directors will bring an external perspective, while Estonian filmmakers offer a portrayal from a person operating within the culture, storing what is considered necessary internally. The collection of films will be released to the audiences in the spring of 2024.
Among the selected filmmakers we have the award-winning Latvian film and theater director Viesturs Kairišs (Nafta Film OÜ, producers Esko Rips, Olga Hartšuk) who takes a look at a sing lonely island Piirissaar, an Estonian island located in Lake Peipus on the very border of Estonia and Russia. The film by Bulgarian director Andrey Paounov (OÜ Vesilind, producer Riho Västrik) is about the self-assembled machines of local fishermen at lake Peipus, karakats. The film of animator Ülo Pikkov’s family is shared (Silmviburlane OÜ, producer Ülo Pikkov) through the fate of his Pechory great-grandmother, and Jaan Tootsen (OÜ Aadam ja pojad, producer Anneli Ahven) brings to life the memories and stories of his childhood in Southern Estonia. The story by Eva Kübara (Mcqueen OÜ, producer Alvar Reinumägi) centers on the German Hilda Ha, who lives an off-grid life in Võru County with her young child, in the forest, without electricity and running water. The short film by Maria Aua (OÜ Vesilind, producer Riho Västrik) focuses on Tartu and its enrichingly boring non-places, i.e. strange wastelands, empty squares and rundown buildings. The main characters of the film by the Swedish-Danish director Carl Olsson (Allfilm OÜ, producer Ivo Felt) are the residents of an apartment building in Annelinn, and the diversity of their identities and dreams is explored through the building’s architecture. The film by Latvian filmmaker Andris Gauja (Film Tower OÜ, producer Margus Õunapuu) is about astronomers with their telescopes and slime mold explorers with their microscopes finding the beauty of curiosity.
The short films would be works of their own but, at the same time, would form a single cultural code – the collection of short documentaries “Arts of Survival”. As a part of the release, Arts of Survival Documentaries opens a traveling “Doc Box” which will arrive at locations in Southern Estonia associated with the films. The selected films will be introduced and the opportunity to participate in a raffle will take place, a Arts of Survival stay in the spring of 2024 at the island Piirissaar located in Lake Peipus on the very border of Estonia and Russia, centering also in Kairišs’s film. Audiences can also sign up for the raffle on our website.