Editor

The 14th Black Nights Film Festival ended with a bang by achieving a record of more than 65’000 visitors during the course of the festival. The figure represents roughly %5 of the entire population of Estonia and shows just how popular the Festival is, not only with local audiences but also with those from across the world.

Festival audiences saw more than 260 features and numerous short films with particular favourites including Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours, the stunning Ukranian movie My Joy (the ulitmate winner of the Eurasia Jury Grand Prix), Estonia’s own The Temptation of St. Tony and the quirky Japanese film Toilet which walked away with the Audience Award.

Festival Director Tiina Lokk said:
“We’d like to thank all the audiences who came and made the festival such a success. It’s a delight to know that during a recession – and a time when we’ve suffered a lack of funds – that cinema lovers know that hard work that we do and enjoy the films that we show. I’d also like to thank all the staff and volunteers for working hard during some extremely tough times,”

More than 300 people worked on the Black Nights Film Festival, with more than 240 working as volunteers.

A total of 688 films were shown at the festival, 264 of them were full length.

The Festival screened at the festival emanated from 86 countries including Sierra Leone, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait.

A total of 770 screenings were held during the festival (this includes screenings in other cities) with an average of 100 tickets sold per screening.

A total of 106 films were translated into Estonian.

The festival welcomed over 450 foreign guests from 45 countries.

Also this year the Black Nights Film Festival started co-operation with world’s largest online database for film professionals - Cinando (www.cinando.com). From the beginning of the festival until the end of December seven titles from this year’s PÖFF program will be screened online for film buyers and distributors - “20 Cigarettes” (Italy), award winning “Princess” (Finland), “Story of Bibinur” (Russia), “The Edge” (Russia), “The Well” (India), as well as Estonian’s “Snow Queen”.

Manager of the Black Nights film industry portal Sten Saluveer said:
“We were sincerely surprised by the cooperation offer, since Cinando works exclusively with world’s leading festivals such as Cannes, Berlin or Toronto. This verifies the high standards of Black Nights, introduces new technologies to filmmakers, and creates opportunities for festival’s films to reach new audiences”


The next edition of the Black Nights Film Festival will be held from 17th November-4th December 2011

Full Black Nights Film Festival information is now available at www.poff.ee.

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Notes for Editors

The Black Nights Film Festival has a Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/festivalpoff. The POFF English twitter feed is available at @POFFWolf whilst the Estonian feed is available at @POFFIHunt

For more information about Tallinn – 2011 European Capital of Culture go to http://www.tallinn2011.ee/eng


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