Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival that ended on Sunday brought more than 260 films to viewers. Films from 75 different countries were screened in nine Estonian cities. For the first time films were also shown in Tallinn’s brand new cinemas Artis and Cinamon.
Most popular films were „Girl with a Dragon Tattoo“ (Sweden, Niels Arden Oplev), „Imaginarium of doctor Parnassus” (Great Britain, Terry Gilliam), „Machan” (Sri Lanka, Uberto Pasolini), „Bright Star” (Great Britain, Jane Campion), „Hipsters” (Russia, Valeri Todorovski), „The Limits of Control” (USA, Jim Jarmush), „Men Who Stare at Goats” (USA, Grant Heslov), „Soul Kitchen” (Germany, Fatih Akin), „The Swimsuit Issue” (Sweden, Mans Herngren), „Mary and Max” (Australia, Adam Elliot) etc.
Most popular in competition programme EurAsia were „Air Doll” (Japan, Hirokazu Kore-eda), „Enter the Void” (France, Gaspar Noe), „No One Knows About Persian Cats” (Iran, Bahman Ghobadi), „Altiplano” (Belgium, Peters Brosens, Jessica Hope Woodworth) and „The Moon” (Great Britain, Duncan Jones). Most popular documentary was Belgium documentary „Kill the Referee”, followed by music documentary from the USA „It Might Get Loud”.

There were many international premieres and world premieres in PÖFF. For example Romanian-Moldavian film „Weddings in Bessarabia” also won jury special award. Seven American indie-films premiered in Europe.
The organizers of the final ceremony produced a great show, entertaining musical and fun. A live band performed during the ceremony key moments, and played in sync to the opening video presentation.
A great homage was given to the jury members: they were all displayed and sat on stage. They were served a three course meal in front of 1500 hungry viewers 
The fun part was the video inside flat screens beneath the table, in front of each jury member. The video showed legs! Some bare, some scratching legs, spreading…A Jack Russel was seen passing from one screen to another.
The wolf that has been part of the festival visual signature since the origin was helping with the ceremony. The statute of the same wolf has been offered by one of the sponsors and guards in front of the Solaris Mall. The main sponsor (Wolf Group, a construction company is currently considering using the same POFF wolf logo.)
Tiina Lokk the festival founder has been growing the festival since its origin; I like to think of her as a woman with a creative will.
The initial edition (19 years ago) drew 4 500 viewers around 28 Nordic films (and 15 guests). The festival attracted 53 000 this year. For the first time in POFF history, the screening took place in permanent theatres in 9 cities as opposed to temp screens in past editions.
Tiina runs a team 12 on staff and 320 volunteers during the event. The organization is flawless and manages to run consecutive events like animation (sleepwalkers) Black Market first edition, with pitching, books to film fair, Baltic event and Eurasia competition.

The future looks exciting for POFF as Tallinn will play Culture Capital of Europe in 2011. Tiina Lokk can grace herself of having persuaded European Film Academy to host the EFA Ceremony in Tallinn and the Europe administration to advance the clock a bit launching the honorary festive events a few days before new year‘s eve.


The jury awarded six films. Grand Prix and 10 000 Euros went to co-directors Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani for the film „Ajami” (Germany, Israel). Prize for best camerawork went to Bahman Ghobadi (Iran) for „No One Knows About Persian Cats ”, best director award went to Finland to Klaus Häro for „Letters to Father Jacob“. Tridens Baltic award went to Lithuanian film „Vortex“, Scottish Leader Estonian film award went to Asko Kase for „December Heat“. Jury of the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) awarded Jaak Kilmi’s documentary „Disco and Atomic War“. Audience gave most votes to South Korean comedy „Castaway from the Moon “.

Key facts and figures about 13th PÖFF:
There were approximately 53 000 visits in PÖFF. Compared to last year 1500 more tickets were sold. This number does not include guests from special events (concerts, seminars, performances etc).
More than 320 people worked for PÖFF, more than half of them were volunteers.
PÖFF took place in 9 cities, 16 cinemas and 21 screening halls.
Together with sub-festivals more than 500 films were shown. 260 of them were full length features.
There were films from 75 countries.
During PÖFF took place 610 screenings. More than 80 screenings were sold out.
There were over 270 foreign guests from 40 countries, 480 people had accreditation.
During 20.11 – 6.12 festival’s homepage www.poff.ee was visited 136 110 times from 86 different countries.

In 2010 the 14th PÖFF waits all film lovers from 11th November to 5th December.

Additional information: www.poff.ee
Bruno Chatelin
The POFF Dailies