Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival

Estonian actor Tõnu Kark and Finnish director and producer Jörn Donner to receive honorary Lifetime Achievement Awards.

84-year-old Jörn Donner is a renowned Finnish film director and producer, who has produced nearly 60 films, including Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny And Alexander, winner of four Academy Awards in 1984, including the Best Foreign Language Film award. Donner gave a memorably hilarious acceptance speech at the ceremony.

His director’s slate comprises of more than 20 films. He began his directing career with A Sunday In September, that won the best debut award in Venice. His other well-known works include Black On White (1968), Portraits Of Women (1970) and documentary Fuck off! Images of Finland (1971).

Donner is one of the founders of the Finnish Film Institute and the director of the Swedish Film Institute from 1978 until 1982. He has worked as a film critic, including the biggest daily paper at the time, the Dagens Nyheter.

Black Nights screened Donner’s retrospective during its 1998 edition. His latest film, the documentary Fuck Off 2: Images Of Finland will have its international premiere at Black Nights Film Festival.

He will receive the honorary award at the screening of Fuck Off: Images of Finland (1971) which will kick off the 48-hour marathon screening of Finnish cult films.

69-year-old Tõnu Kark played pivotal roles in the new wave of Estonian cinema in the1980’s, including films such as: Ideal Landscape (1981) and The Adventurer (1983).

Kark has played in over 60 Estonian films, including the Soviet box office hit Unmarked Merchandise (Gruz bez markirovki, 1984) that sold more than 35,9 million tickets that made him well-known in several Soviet countries.He has been awarded the best male actor in Estonia several times and once in Latvia.

Kark will receive the award on the 20th of November at the world premiere of The Green Cats, the new tragicomedy directed by Andres Puustusmaa, that is part of the festival’s Estonian Film Competition. Kark plays one of the two leading roles alongside the Russian actor Sergey Makovetski.
 

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