Presenting the crème de la crème of fresh output from the festival’s home region, this year’s Baltic Competition programme consists of 17 works.

The selection includes 5 world premieres and 4 international premieres, and one Baltic premiere. Additionally, 7 previously released and critically acclaimed Baltic films from 2023 will compete for the award.

Among the fiction features will be screened 7 documentaries. The programme curator, Edvinas Pukšta, is truly happy: "This year's Baltic Film Competition astonishes with the wildest and broadest range of various genres, ideas, cinematic languages and techniques as never before. We will humbly present minimalist zero-budget experimentalism, extremely true personal stories and popular commercial flicks. We aim to show how creative, inventive, hilarious, romantic, rewarding and solid Baltic filmmakers are."

The Writer. Photo: film still

Pukšta adds: "The World Premiere headliners are the documentaries Life and Death of Christmas Tree (dir. Artūras Jevdokimovas) and The Ice That Still Supports Us (dir. Arko Okk), as well as New Yorker minimalist drama The Writer (dir. Romas Zabarauskas), starring American actors Bruce Ross and Jamie Day. The fellow two world premieres, Spit to My Face (dir. Manfred Vainokivi) and Taurins Senior (dir. Alexander Hahn) are small experimental personal films. Interestingly, Alexander Hahn is probably the most experienced and award-winning director in the 2023 selection, but he made the most unexpected zero-budget film."

Baltic Film Competition will also host 4 candidates for the 2024 Oscar Nomination for Best International Feature Film: Slow (Lithuania), My Freedom (Latvia), Smoke Sauna Sisterhood (Estonia), and Polish The Peasants (in co-production with Lithuania and Serbia).

The Ice That Still Supports us. Photo: Film still

FILM DETAILS

Everything Will Be Alright - Latvia, 2023. dir. Stanislavs Tokalovs | International premiere

Life and Death of a Christmas Tree - Lithuania, Georgia, Denmark, 2023. dir. Artūras Jevdokimovas | World Premiere

My Freedom - Latvia, 2023. dir. Ilze Kunga-Melgaile | International premiere

Spit In My Face - Estonia, 2023. dir. Manfred Vainokivi | World Premiere

Taurins Senior - Latvia, United Kingdom, 2023. dir. Alexander Hahn | World Premiere

The Brazen - Latvia, 2023. dir. Aik Karapetian | International premiere

The Ice That Still Supports Us - Estonia, Finland, Lithuania, Czech Republic, 2023. dir. Arko Okk | World Premiere

The Test - Lithuania, 2023. dir. Ramūnas Cicėnas | International Premiere

The Writer - Lithuania, Germany, USA, 2023. dir. Romas Zabarauskas | World Premiere

Twittering Soul 3D - Lithuania, 2023. dir. Deimantas Narkevičius | Baltic Premiere

Dark Paradise - Estonia, 2023. dir. Triin Ruumet

Eastern Front - Latvia, Ukraine, Czech Republic, USA, 2023. dir. Vitaliy Manskiy, Yevhen Titarenko

Slow - Lithuania, Spain, Sweden, 2023. dir. Marija Kavtaradze

Smoke Sauna Sisterhood - Estonia, France, Iceland, 2023. dir. Anna Hints

Stairway To Heaven - Estonia, 2023. dir. Mart Kivastik

The Last Relic - Estonia, Norway, 2023. dir. Marianna Kaat

The Peasants - Poland, Serbia, Lithuania, 2023. dir. DK Welchman, Hugh Welchman

Baltic Film Competition premiere info and synopses can be found
HERE

The festival will take place from the 3th until the 19th of November, while the festival’s industry platform Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event will run from the 13th until the 17th of November.
This year's focus region is Serbia and SEE* (South-East European) countries.
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The presskits and film stills of the programme can be found HERE