Programmes

The EurAsia competition programme returns to the POFF for an eighth year running. This year it has what seems to be the optimum number of films – 18. That is how many films vie for awards at major festivals; sometimes the number there is even fewer. Black Nights has positioned itself as a festival that takes place in northeastern Europe. And indeed that is where we are – in the somewhere between the festivals in Warsaw, Stockholm, St. Petersburg and now –...

Fiction and documentary films from the Baltic States compete for Tridens Baltic Film Award.

Fiction and documentary films from Estonia compete for HEAVE(i)N Estonian Film Award.

In a day when the Hollywood studios have become ever more dependent on big budget event films and franchise tentpoles the importance of the independent producer in North America has never been more obvious. If you like superheroes and pirates the studios are great, sure, but there is a much broader range of issues and stories out there and it is in the independents that we find a broader experience of cinema. Seldom has the independent film scene in North...

  It’s interesting to note that in the years after our spectacular economic crash in 2008 the number of films screened has actually increased by around a third from the years before in spite of more than 35% cut in public film funding in the period. This can be explained by a combination of two factors; some projects had already wrapped or secured funding before the cuts were implemented and some of them were made with minor or no support from the film...

FRIDRIK THOR FRIDRIKSSON who will receive a Lifetime Achievemnet Award, was born in Iceland in 1954. Almost totally self-educated in cinematography, he started making 16mm films while still in high school. He ran the University’s film club, founded Iceland’s first film magazine and helped set up the Reykjavik Film Festival which he chairs at present. Fridriksson directed non-conventional documentaries, such as “Rock in Reykjavik” (1982) and “Icelandic Cowboys”...

This programme consists of 15 films that have been chosen by the POFF team. Here you can see films by directors who have participated in our festivals with their films more than two times already. We’re not exaggerating while stating that lots of festivalgoers know POFF just because of the names of those 15 directors because namely they have presented here both their first and experiencing films and later masterpieces which have won numerous awards.

One of the 2009-2010 festival’s most successful sub-programmes will be back by popular demand this year – the Black Nights Vitamin Boost, featuring films selected with particular special care by the festival’s program team as an antidote to gloom and doom. These 10 films that banish depressive thoughts and leave you with a pleasant, positive feeling when you exit the cinema. Black Nights Vitamin Boost films are like life itself – happy and sad at the same...

There are more festivals in the world than there are days in a year. The films in our Panorama programme are the masterpieces most awarded during the last year and they should give you a fine overview of the trends and tendencies dominating the contemporary world of cinema. This is a programme with wide coverage of different film cultures from all over the world.

Truth lies in arguments. These 37 films presented in our Forum programme will incite arguing with their content, form and retrievals in aesthetics. It often happens that the films in the Forum programme are disputing with each other and the audience, whilst bringing a new type of hero onscreen or approaching an old problem from a more interesting and contemporary angle. Forum programme film is not necessarily a “small” film, but it is definitely an intriguing...

This year’s selection of Screen choice films offer a wonderful variety of cinema styles and content – ranging from silent black-and-white through to a classic British spy story, and with a powerful grouping of films inbetween.   Michel Hazanavicius’s film “The Artist” is one of those rare films that left even the grumpiest of Cannes critics with a smile on their face as celebrated classic silent Hollywood, driven by a stunning – and awardwinning –...

  Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. what seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Henry Miller (American writer)   This year’s human rights programme of PÖFF is titled “Diversity Enriches”. It’s a programme which shows how everything people run away from is actually so average and...

  This year, Black Nights will show over 30 different documentaries in the various subprogrammes. As always the number can vary, as genres are hard to define in the case of some films and depends greatly on viewers’ tastes and producers’ marketing decisions. Estonia itself certainly had a good year in documentaries, and the country’s best will go toe to toe with the Latvians and Lithuanians in a strong Baltic competition programme.   But as always,...

  Flying in the face of the cynicism of marketing, production, business operators and the moral majority, a group of directors from all over the world came together to screen, once and once only, a collage film entitled 60 Seconds of Solitude in Year Zero dedicated to preserving freedom of thought in cinema. The film will not be marketed or distributed in any way, shape or form, the copy will be destroyed.    Mark Boswell (USA), Naomi Kawase...

  Already for five years, Monton has supported the special fashion film programme and donned the whole PÖFF team in awesome shirts. This year’s film programme again presents a fresh choice of the world’s best fashion films.   We particularly want to point out the much-awarded “Bill Cunningham New York”, which tells the story of a photographer in a respectable age, who has enjoyed the opportunity of going everywhere with his lens, taking photos of...

  Those of you used to Sleepwalkers occurring alongside PÖFF may have noticed that it is conspicuous by its absence. Never fear as the festival dedicated to short and student films will return in Spring 2012 with fresh ideas and a packed programme of amazing films. However, Sleepwalkers does not want to deny visitors to PÖFF the opportunity to experience some of the best new shorts from across the world and we’ve put together a special selection of...