Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF) is one of the largest film festivals in Northern Europe and brings home the freshest and most exciting pieces of world cinema every November. This year's festical will take place from 12 to 28 November.
Started in 1997, the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival has grown into one of the biggest film festivals in Northern Europe and also into one of the busiest regional industry platforms, hosting more than 1000 guests and industry delegates and over 160 journalists. The festival screens around 250 features and more than 300 shorts and animations and sees an attendance of 80.000 people annually.
The A-Festival PÖFF is kept in constant motion every year through cooperation, in which viewers and films are connected on a voluntary basis, now more than 300. Together in Estonia, the organizers have succeeded in filling the black nights of November with bright film experiences on the cinema screens, and attracting filmmakers from all over the world. The meeting places of the PÖFF wolves in the Estonian cinemas remain the same, but the routes are different every year. One of the prerequisites for growth for PÖFF is to constantly expand its view of the world. This means that the PÖFF range always goes beyond its comfort zone. New cultural spaces and new filmmakers open up space for burning questions, emotions, astonishment and authenticity. One example is "107 Mothers" by Peter Kerekes:
Lesya has committed a crime of passion which brings her a seven-year sentence in one of Odessa’s women’s correctional facilities. She has just given birth to her first child, and now she is entering a world populated only by women: inmates, nurses and wardens, women of all ages, wives and widows, daughters, sisters, pregnant women, and women with children too. If not for the color of the uniform, it would sometimes be hard to tell who is who.
The film was nominated by Slovakia for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
The PÖFF will take place from 12 to 28 November. More information about the films and the program can be found here.
Around 4,000 film festivals are held worldwide each year. Only fifteen of them have received Category A certification from the International Federation of Producers' Unions. Together with Cannes, Berlin, Venice and other film festivals around the world, PÖFF is in this A category.
