Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival announces the first eight films of the Official Selection – Competition, the premiere competition programme of its 24th edition.
Published: 24.09.2020.
The lineup includes the international premiere of Final Report by the Academy-Award-winning Hungarian veteran István Szabó, who has been awarded the festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013.
Six of the announced films are world premieres, as Black Nights welcomes the return of Latvian auteur Laila Pakalnina with In the Mirror; the celebrated Kazakhstan director Adilkhan Yerzhanov with Ulbolysn; the multiple-award-winning Croatian director Dalibor Matanić with The Dawn; veteran Russian scriptwriter and director Georgi Mindadze with Parquet; the up and coming Turkish director Nisan Dağ presenting her second feature When I’m Done Dying and the Portuguese film and TV director Leonardo António with Submission. The first batch is rounded off by The Three by the Sundance Best-Director-award-winning Russian director Anna Melikyan.
Commenting on the programme selection, festival director Tiina Lokk stressed the odd nature of this year’s submission patterns: “It’s been a truly memorable year, with its disasters and recoveries. This was not left unfelt during our submission process as there was a point during the quarantine when the submissions completely stopped for more than a month. The bigger was our surprise when very strong, author-drive films started pouring in starting from mid summer! This will be the biggest selection we have ever made for this programme, simply because we received so many great films! It was sad to be forced to say no to some amazing films because we just couldn’t fit them in anymore.”
She added: “I’m personally extremely excited about this year’s programme, as it is very author-driven and thus is set to divide opinions and launch debates – just like good art should do. Very glad to welcome back some old friends, mixed with exciting new emerging voices!”
Black Nights has previously announced that it’s moving forward organising a stripped-back programme but holding physical screenings, which includes the premieres. The festival is also glad to announce a collaboration with two Estonian private labs Synlab and Medicum who will be providing the festival with COVID-19 tests and masks.
Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival
Press release
23 September 2020