Editor

47 575 viewers attended the 8th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival that ended last Sunday.
The Black Nights Film Festival (BNFF) with its 3 sub-festivals (Sleepwalkers’ Student Film Festival, Children and Youth Film Festival “Just Film” and Animation film festival “Animated Dreams”) showed altogether 553 films in 563 screenings. The festival took place in 4 towns (besides Tallinn and Tartu selected programmes were presented in Viljandi and Pärnu too), in 21 cinema theatres.

This year the BNFF programme included works from 67 countries, 14 of which (incl. Armenia, Mali, Pakistan, Burkina Faso, Malaysia) had their films presented in the festival here for the first time. More than 50 different languages were spoken in the films overall.

Five films received an audience of more than 1000 people: “Downfall” (Germany) with its 3 sold-out screenings was followed by “The Sea Inside” (Spain), “Dreamers” (UK/France), “City of God” (Brasil) and “Girl with the Pearl Earring” (UK). Very popular were also “3-Iron” (South Korea) and “2046” (China/Hong Kong).
The festival had altogether 80 sold-out screenings.

The EurAsian competition programme was introduced at the festival for the first time this year. The international jury gave its Grand Prix to Kazakh film “Schizo”, with the director Guka Omarova present to receive her award.

The most awarded film proved to be Kim Ki-duk’s “3-Iron” receiving the award for best direction from the international jury as well as the awards of Estonian Film-Critics Association, jury of “Postmees” daily and the audience in Tallinn. The audience regarded highly also “2046”, “Head-On”, “Dreamers” and “The Taste of Tea”.
The audience in Tartu chose Gus van Sant’s “Elephant” as their favourite.

On Saturday the European Film Academy presented its awards, 9 of which were received by the films that were included in BNFF programme: “Head-On” (best film and audience award for best director), “The Sea Inside” (best director and best actor), “Look at Me” (best script), “Girls with the Pearl Earring” (best cinematography) and “2046” (best non-European film).

The average number of visits into festival’s homepage (www.poff.ee) from 23 November to 12 December was 2998 per day, average number of hits was 573 386.

BNFF had this year 158 foreign guests from 28 countries.

8. TALLINN BLACK NIGHTS FILM FESTIVAL AWARDS

International Jury:
Tahmine Milani (Head of the Jury, Iran)
Fridrik Thor Fridriksson (Iceland)
Anwar Jamal (India)
Ramses Marzouk (Egypt)
Nikolaj Nikitin (Germany)
Jüri Sillart (Estonia)


GRAND PRIX FOR BEST EURASIAN FILM (with cash award of 10. 000 EUR)
SKISO / SCHIZO (Director Guka Omarova, Kazakhstan / Russia / France / Germany)

JURY PRIZE FOR THE BEST DIRECTOR
KIM KI-DUK (3 Iron / Bin Jip, South Korea)

JURY PRIZE FOR THE BEST ACTOR
TONY LEUNG (2046, China / Hong Kong / France / Germany)

JURY PRIZE FOR THE BEST ACTRESS
MARTA LARRALDE (León and Olvido / León y Olvido, Spain)

SPECIAL JURY PRIZE (DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY)
CHRISTOPHER DOYLE (2046, China / Hong Kong / France / Germany)


NETPAC Jury:
Giuseppe Gariazzo (Italy)
Karlo Funk (Estonia)
Wong Tuck Cheong (Malaysia)


NETPAC JURY AWARD
THE TASTE OF TEA / CHA NO AJI (Director Ishii Katsuhito, Japan)

SPECIAL MENTION
LITTLE MEN / MALENKIJE LJUDI (Director Nariman Turebajev, Kazahkstan / France)


FICC Jury:
Mart Rummo (Estonia)
Raul Broceno Corrales (Spain)
Atle Hunnes Isaksen (Norway)


FICC JURY AWARD – DON QUIJOTE AWARD
LEÓN AND OLVIDO / LEÓN Y OLVIDO (Director Xavier Sanchéz Bermúdez, Spain)


SPECIAL MENTION
3 IRON / BIN JIP (Director Kim Ki-Duk, South Korea)



ESTONIAN FILM CRITICS’ AWARD
3 IRON / BIN JIP (Director Kim Ki-Duk, South Korea)


THE PRIZE OF THE POSTIMEES JURY
3 IRON / BIN JIP (Director Kim Ki-Duk, South Korea)


AUDIENCE AWARD
3 IRON / BIN JIP (Director Kim Ki-Duk, South Korea)

LIFE ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
KALJU KIISK (Director, Estonia)