KINOKINO: LITTLE HOUSE IN THE PERIPHERY (screening program)

SATURDAY, November 9 11:00 – 19:30

KINOKINO – senter for kunst og film
Olav Kyrresgt 5, 4307 Sandnes, Norway 

www.kinokino.no

The Estonian Dream documentary film program is comprised of five films, which are divided in turn into two sets. All of them provide an insight into Estonian society in a way, and deal with the issues of nationalism, political or social activism, as well as memory and identity politics. The films chosen for the program have all passed the test of international festivals and present five different “cases” which, based on the example of Estonia, help to explain contradictions in post-Socialist societies, which the people in the former West may find difficult to comprehend. The program also provides a cross-section of Estonian documentaries during the last ten years, by introducing a significant portion of Estonian filmmakers through individual films.

Despite the fact that the two first films – Esto TV’s Choose Order and Jaan Tootsen’s New World – deal with the problems of political and social activism, they are in some sense total opposites. If Jaan Tootsen’s film observes the activities of grassroots activists in a Tallinn neighborhood, which is called New World, and examines their efforts to cultivate a sense of community and establish a community center under the “nurturing” conditions of neoliberal capitalism, and a tangle of mutual relationships; then ESTO TV deals with the cultivation of a totally different type of activism. ESTO TV, with its Sasha Baron Cohen influences, is embodied as a “hunter battalion,” as they have called themselves, in order to support the new conservative political power in the 2003 parliamentary election with pro-fascist slogans like “Choose Order” and “Zero Tolerance”. ESTO TV’s act of over-identification with their rhetoric vividly brings forth the symptoms of the party’s political parlance, which advertises itself as a new and honest political power, but is rather reminiscent of one particular historical political power.

Memory and identity politics can be considered to be the central keywords of the second set. Disco and Atomic War focuses on pop culture, and primarily on the role of Finnish TV in the formation of the world perception of the Cold War era generation. Among other things, Kiur Aarma and Jaak Kilmi’s film also reveals the instructions for making your own decimeter antenna, and the destructive effect of the Dallas TV series on the youth of Soviet Estonia. However, Meelis Muhu’s Alyosha and Kristina Norman’s A Monument to Please Everyone deal with the problems of memory in the contemporary Estonian society. Alyosha observes the tensions between two different memory communities – the Estonians and the Russians – which had grown into street riots by 2007, and the symbolic center of these tensions, the so-called Bronze Soldier statue on Tõnismäe Hill.

The people nicknamed the statue Alyosha, and during the Soviet period, an eternal flame burned in front of it to honor the Soviet soldiers that were killed in WW II. The sculpture, which was a reminder of the Soviet occupation for Estonians and of the heroic fight against fascism for Russians, was caught between two different memory cultures. On the other hand, A Monument to Please Everyone speaks about the campaign, which started simultaneously with the process to remove Alyosha, to install a War of Independence Monument in Tallinn’s Freedom Square, only a few hundred meters from Aloysha’s former location. It also observes the populist political-technological agenda of its installation, primarily through two very young engineer-architects, who, by accident, succeeded in winning the competition.

The film program is directly related to the exhibition of the same name, taking place at Rogaland Kunstsenter.

PROGRAM 
SET I

11:00
ESTO TV’s mocumentary
Choose Order, 2004
dir. Andres Maimik 1 h 8’

A sensational Estonian film from 2004, the satirical documentary Choose Order speaks about the so-called New Policy that, on its way to power, uses the longing of the people for an iron fist. The scandalous media unit Esto TV establishes a pro-fascist hunter battalion that starts implementing the slogan — Choose Order — promoted by the party in power at that time. On their mission shock reporters Ken and Tolk visit the power centers of Estonia and the European Union, keep an eye on the activities of the Prime Minister Juhan Parts, reveal the conspiracies of the opponents and eliminate human garbage from the streets of Estonia as well as Europe. Like a razor blade across the eyeball, Esto TV invades the hidden layers of Estonian society to reveal our everyday xenophobia, racism and intolerance. One Country, One Nation, One Leader!’

12:20

documentary
New World, 2012
dir. Jaan Tootsen 1 h 24’

How to create an urban living space? How to change the world/your neighborhood? How to make a revolution? This film is about the New World Society, a citizens’ initiative in Tallinn, Estonia. The New World is an observational documentary. It follows the main characters and examines the dynamics of their revolution from the very beginning – four years ago. We see euphoria, passion, compromises, frustration, hurt feelings and broken hearts. It is the anatomy of a revolution.

13:45-14:30 LUNCH BREAK

SET II

14:30
documentary
Disco and Atomic War, 2009
dir. Jaak Kilmi and Kiur Aarma 1 h 20’

This is a story about growing up in the Soviet Union. The film tells the story of a strange kind of information war, where a totalitarian regime stands face to face with the heroes of popular culture. And loses. It was a time when it was possible for erotic film star Emmanuelle to bring down the Red Army and MacGyver to outdo an entire school administration. It is a film about a generation, who was unknowingly brought to the front line of the Cold War. Western popular culture played an incomparable role shaping the worldview of Soviet children in those days. Finnish television was a window to a world of dreams that the authorities could not block in any way. Though Finnish channels were banned, many households found some way to access the forbidden fruit

16:00
documentary
Alyosha, 2008
dir. Meelis Muhu 1 h 7’

Most monuments erected during the Soviet regime were taken down after Estonia regained its independence in 1991. The Bronze Soldier Alyosha, located in the center of Tallinn, remained in its place. For Estonian nationalists this monument was the symbol of the Soviet occupation and marked the beginning of Stalinist repressions. However, for many Russians the monument was one of the few remaining symbols that connected them to Russia and their Russian identity.Alyosha, the documentary, brings us the people who gathered around the Bronze Soldier between 2005 and 2007 and whose behavior created a new line in our cultural memory. What mattered were the rituals around the monument, not the monument itself. The differences of opinion about history resulted in tragic conflicts and the relocation of the monument.

17:10
documentary
A Monument to Please Everyone, 2011
dir. Kristina Norman 1 h 27’

In an atmosphere ripe with nationalism, two young engineers are commissioned by the Estonian Ministry of Defense to erect the country’s most important monument – a statue commemorating the War of Independence. With strong political and social pressure, the heroes find themselves in many tragicomic situations and a constant series of ordeals. All of this paints a colorful and unique picture of the creation of a symbol during a time of financial crisis in Estonia.

18:40
Talk with the directors Kristina Norman & Meelis Muhu