Editor

Grand Prix of EurAsia competition - HOUSE WITH A TURRET

This year’s Black Nights Film Festival presented 266 feature length films at a record number of 705 screenings which is more than screened in Estonian cinemas during a whole year. All festival screenings and special film events reached 67 000 admissions.

The 16th Black Nights Film Festival ended on 2 December with the Russian comedy “Kokoko” turning out as the most viewed film with 1010 viewers on 4 screenings. The audience record for a single screening belongs to „Cloud Atlas“ with big Hollywood names in the cast. Starring Oscar winners Tom Hanks and Halle Berry „Cloud Atlas“ attracted 698 viewers to a single screening.

„Our popularity this year was comparable to the past record years although this time the digital formats set limits to the number of screenings. We also survived one of the greatest shocks in festival’s history at the beginning as the digital revolution forced us to cancel some screenings,“ comments the festival director Tiina Lokk.

„The Black Nights ambition is to be a tourism magnet and a meeting point of American and Asian film industry, but the home audience’s and fans’ support is still the most important aim,“ says Lokk. „Of course we will keep trying to attract new viewers but the festival should never turn its back to the most loyal customers. That's why we waived the special deals campaigns on tickets in order to not devalue the tickets of those who bought them right at the beginning for the original price.“

The international jury awarded the grand prix of the best film at the Black Nights EurAsia programme with 10 000 euros to the Ukrainian film „House with a Turret“. Heave(i)n best Estonian film award was given to Toomas Hussar’s „Mushrooming“, Tridens Herring Baltic Sea region’s best film was awarded to Russian-Georgian-Czech „Everybody’s Gone“.
One of the biggest film events in the Northern Europe expects film fans again in November 2013.

Ten facts about the Black Nights Film Festival:

During the festival 410 people worked for the Black Nights, among them 340 volunteers.

The festival took place in 10 cities and 27 cinemas or adapted halls.

550 films were screened, 266 of them feature length.
There were films from 66 countries. For the first time a Saudi Arabian film was screened ("Wadjda").

There were 705 screenings – if someone was to watch all screenings it would take 46 days.
78 films were translated into Estonian, 42 into Russian.

During the festival there was 1 world premiere, 1 international premiere and 5 European premieres.

During 12.-28.11 the festival’s website www.poff.ee was visited 184 842 times. The visitors to the website came from 106 countries, most from Estonia, Finland, Germany but also Yemen, Iraq and Paraguay.

Only 45 films arrived on the 35 mm film reel, all others on digital carriers.

Black Nights was attended by 500 accredited guests.