13/10/2016 - The Estonian festival has selected 13 films from newcomers from a number of diverse regions, presented in their world or international premiere

In the lead-up to its 20^th anniversary edition, the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (11-27 November) has announced the titles selected for its First Features Competition. The section, dedicated to showcasing emerging filmmakers, will, this year, feature 13 world and international premieres.

The European titles that will be having their world premiere are Stefano Amatucci’s Caina [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Stefano Amatucci
film profile] (Italy), a tale about a morally dystopian Europe, in which the bodies of dead refugees that are washed ashore have become an industrial problem for the local authorities and a business for those responsible for their disposal, and Tereza Kotyk’s Home Is Here [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Tereza Kotyk
film profile] (Austria), the story of a Viennese teenager who gains access to a posh and private house that she starts secretly visiting, slowly making changes to its owner’s possessions and life. The other films that will be having their world premieres are Kira Kovalenka’s portrait of the life of an Abhkazian woman, Sofichka (Russia), Hadi Ghandour’s grown-up coming-of-age tale of a travelling salesman, The Traveller [+see also:
film review
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interview: Hadi Ghandour
film profile] (Lebanon/France) and Navid Danesh’s Duet (Iran), a study of two couples’ relationships, whose past is intertwined.

As for the international premieres, the festival will screen three European titles. Documentary filmmaker Lidia Terki’s first fiction film, Paris La Blanche [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Lidia Terki
film profile] (France), tells the story of a 70-year-old woman who decides to follow her husband’s trail to France, 40 years after his departure from Algeria. Slovak producer Michal Kollár delivers his first film as a director, The Red Captain (Slovakia/Czech Republic/Poland), a bold crime thriller set during the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union in Bratislava that tackles Czechoslovachia's dissolution. Lastly, The White King [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (United Kingdom), directed by Alex Helfrecht and Jörg Tittel, adapts the acclaimed Hungarian novel of the same name to study the mechanisms of subjugation in totalitarian societies, through a dystopian dictatorship that worships rurality, violence and hard labour.

The section is rounded off by Wedding Dance (Turkey) by Çiğdem Sezgin, a study of gender roles, relationships and marriages in contemporary Turkey, The Cockroach (Chile) by Francisco Hevia and Vinko Tomicic, Gentle Breath (Colombia) by Augusto Sandino, Holy Biker (Brazil) by Homero Olivetto and Man With the Binoculars (India) by Rima Das.