Estonia: Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF) to show films online

NordenBladet – The annual Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF) takes place this year in exceptional conditions due to the coronavirus. Viewers will be required to wear a mask to movie screenings, but PÖFF films can also be watched at home online for the first time.

PÖFF director Tiina Lokk implored people to follow the rules put in place by the festival this year, which starts on November 13, so the festival can remain open.

This year, PÖFF has slightly fewer films than but all competition programs are still running and several Estonian films will be screened and premiered. There will also be a focus will be on German cinema.

Mikk Granström, director of the youth and children’s film festival Just Film, described how the online part of the festival will work. “You can see almost 100 movies on the Internet. The logic is that if a movie has been physically out of the cinema for some time, then you can watch that movie online for five days. That’s the simplest rule that’s there. Once a person has bought a ticket, they have 48 hours to watch the film,” he said.

Granström said the Just Film program still reflects a virus-free world: “All the films in the program, 40 films, were made before the coronavirus crisis, we can look back at a world we will never return to.”

Speaking about the impact of the coronavirus on the film industry, Tiina Lokk told ETV’s “Akutaalne kaamera”: “It’s been such a mess in the film world. It’s wreaked havoc at festivals, the schedules of premieres have been messed up, no one has benefited from it.”

The festival ends on November 29. View the full programme HERE.

Featured image: PÖFF ´s director Tiina Lokk (NordenBladet)