/upcoming/
Estonia-Denmark / TV-series
BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN
Created by Helen Lõhmus & Leana Jalukse
Drama series
Stage - Development
Leaving her child with the parents who disowned her is the only way Marilin can join an international singing contest and make her way towards stardom and independence through newly-formed friendships and painful letdowns, dazzling successes and destructive excesses, in various republics of the Soviet Union and its dangers of censorship and treacherous culture of complaint.
AWARDS: the Most Promising Project award winner at TV-Beats Co-Financing Market 2023 @ Blacknights Film Festival
/released/
Estonia-France / Feature documentary
Kelly - Someone Else’s Dream (2024)
dir. helen lõhmus & Leana Jalukse
Premiered @ Hot Docs 2024
Feature documentary, 93 min
World sales: AUtlook filmsales
KELLY SILDARU shot to international fame in 2016 when, at the age of 13, she won her first gold at Winter X Games. She and her father Tõnis, who acted as her coach and manager, were known as a tightknit team. Coming from a country with no freestyle tradition and modest mountains, carving out a career in the relatively young discipline, they pushed boundaries and broke records.
After a seemingly endless string of triumphs, an injury shattered the dream. Kelly missed her long awaited first Winter Olympics. She returned to the podiums the next season to continue her winning streak, make the best season of her life, and sweep three medals at the 2019 Winter X Games, but cracks started to appear in the façade.
In early 2021, Kelly decided to step forward and make a shocking statement to the media – revealing the dark reality of abuse behind the glittering curtain of success. This is a painfully honest portrait of a girl who came through years of mental terror with sheer positivity and hard work.
Latvia-Japan / Drama, Comedy
Magic Kimono (2017)
dir .Maris Martinsons
Associate Producer
World Sales: Antipode
Magic Kimono tells the story of middle-aged Japanese woman Keiko, who has been living in a shell for decades due to a family tragedy in Kobe. The modest act of eating and the sensations it gives us provided Keiko a lifeline to survive. The films stars two Japanese screen legends - Issey Ogata (Martin Scorsese’s “Silence”) and Kaori Momoi (“Memoirs of a Geisha”). Magic Kimono was the first Japanese-Latvian co-production and was shot in Riga, Latvia, and Kobe, Japan.
Laos-France-Estonia / Supernatural horror, drama
Dearest Sister / Nong Hak (2016)
dir. Mattie Do
Producer Helen Lõhmus, Sten-kristian saluveer
World Sales: Raven Banner Entertainment, XYZ Films (North America)
Dearest Sister a 2016 Lao-French-Estonia horror film. It is the second feature film directed by Mattie Do and was selected as the Laotian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 90th Academy Awards, the first time that Laos has submitted a film for consideration in this category, but it was not nominated.
The film is about a Lao village girl who travels to Vientiane to care for her rich cousin who has mysteriously lost her sight, and somehow gained the ability to communicate with the dead. Matters are further driven by the cousin’s ambivalent marriage with an Estonian white migrant, who has his own dark secrets to hide.
Festivals: Fantastic Fest (World Premiere), London BFI (International Premiere), Sitges
Canditate for Best Forgein Language Film at the 90th Academy Awards in 2017.
South Korea / Romance, Drama
Man and Woman / Namwgayeo (2016)
dir. Lee Yoon-ki
Production Consulting
World Sales: Showbox Entertainment
Festivals: Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival
A Man and a Woman is a 2016 South Korean romance film directed by Lee Yoon-ki. It stars Jeon Do-yeon and Gong Yoo as two people who meet and begin a love affair in Finland.
South-Korea - Estonia
Angry Painter (2015)
dir. Jeon Kyu-hwan
Co-Producer
World Sales: M-Line Distribution
Festivals: Bifan, Sitges, Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival
A mysterious man, ‘Painter’ is a chase, who always be with ‘Driver’. Driver is in a relationship with and Estonian girl, who works at US soldier’s club. She was drifting several regions because of father’s gambling debt. Someday US soldier goes mad for their relationship, and kill her and her boyfriend in front of Painter. Being so angry Painter turns into mad creature and mysterious power leads him to even Estonia.
USA / Horror, Fantasy, Omnibus
VHS Viral -
segment “Bonestorm”(2014)
dir. Aaron Moorhead & Justin Benson
Associate Producer
World Sales: XYZ Films
V/H/S: Viral is a 2014 American anthology horror film from Bloody Disgusting. The final film in the V/H/S trilogy, created by Brad Miska, features a series of found-footage shorts written and directed by Nacho Vigalondo, Marcel Sarmiento, Gregg Bishop, Justin Benson and Aaron Scott Moorhead.
A trio of skateboarders perform various stunts as the videographer they hired pushes them into increasingly dangerous circumstances in the hopes of filming a snuff film. After they become bored, the videographer suggests they continue the film shoot in Tijuana, where they subsequently become lost after buying fireworks withut knowing they've been closely watched by a cult.
Estonia / Anthology Film, Installation, Performance
60 Seconds of Solitude
in Year Zero (2011)
Creative dir. Veiko Õunpuu, Taavi Eelmaa
Associate Producer, Directors liaison
60 Seconds of Solitude in Year Zero is a 2011 anthology film, a one-time-only event that took place in the Port of Tallinn, Estonia on 22 December 2011. The film is a collection of one-minute short films created by 60 filmmakers from around the world on the theme of the death of cinema.
The project, developed as an ode to 35mm film and dedicated to preserving the freedom of thought in cinema, was conceived by Veiko Õunpuu with Taavi Eelmaa and funded by the 2011 European Capital of Culture Tallinn, the Estonian Ministry of Culture and the EU-Japan Fest Committee.
The directors included Phie Ambo (Denmark), Shinji Aoyama (Japan), Jes Benstock (UK), Mark Boswell (USA), Mark Cousins (Ireland), Maxì Dejoie (Italy), Gustav Deutsch (Austria), Feyyaz (Germany), Michael Glawogger (Austria), Jorge Michel Grau (Mexico), Malcolm Le Grice (UK), Jan Ijäs (Finland), Ishii Sogo-Gakuryu (Japan), Jeon Kyu-hwan (South Korea), Jussi Jaakola (Finland), Ken Jacobs (USA), Vimukthi Jayasundara (Sri Lanka), Woo Ming Jin (Malaysia), Viktor Kaganovich (Ukraine), Kang Kiyoung aka Dalpalan (South Korea), Tolga Karaçelik (Turkey), Manuela Kaufmann (Italy), Naomi Kawase (Japan), Ville Kerimaa (Finland), Eric Khoo (Singapore)
Kim Jee-woon (South Korea), Aku Louhimies (Finland), Ari Alexander Ergis Magnússon (Iceland), Marina Manushenko (Switzerland), Bruce McClure (USA), Brillante Mendoza (Philippines), Kyungwon Moon (South Korea), Amir Naderi (Iran), Park Chan-wook (South Korea), Rafi Pitts (Iran), Pen-ek Ratanaruang (Thailand), Jussi Reittu (Finland), Simon Rumley (UK), Albert Serra (Spain), Ronni Shendar (Israel), Norbert Shieh (USA), Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson (Iceland), Auraeus Solito (Philippines), Mika Taanila (Finland), Mart Taniel (Estonia), Andres Tenusaar (Estonia), Tom Tykwer (Germany), Gillian Wearing (UK), Gereon Wetzel (Germany), Oliver Whitehead (Finland), Adam Wingard (USA), Edmund Yeo (Malaysia/Japan), Kari Yli-Annala (Finland), Brian Yuzna (USA), Veiko Õunpuu (Estonia)
