By Matthias Wannhoff. They say that there is nothing right within something wrong. But sometimes there is at least something easy within something difficult. And writing a cinematic history of Estonia is at once difficult and easy: On the one hand it is difficult, as you have to analyze a time full of disruptions and raptures that let all promises of historiographic continuity seem like a joke. It does get easy however once you realize that modern (or in other words: non-political) concepts of art can't really be applied to the history of Estonian moving pictures anyway. Political and artistic history, which normally seem screaming opposites, are actually intertwined more than once at the Baltic coast.

The new medium used to have a hard time in Estonia, where the audience was traditionally leaning more towards theatre, opera and literature. Johannes Pääsuke's short film Karujaht Pärnumaal, a satire from 1914 about the quarrels between country folk and members of the urban administration, is widely hailed as the country's pioneering work. The first World War was another retarding moment in the already hard labour of birthing an Estonian film culture, so that the first domestic feature film, Konstantin Märska's lost Mineviku varjud, was not produced until 1924.

After the foundation of the USSR the Estonian film gathered speed and soon grew to be the cultural section most subsidized by the government. Its potential for propaganda was turned into a steady production of newsreel shows and cinematic reifications of the socialist utopia by the Communist Party, reaching its peak after World War 2 under Stalin. Only after the dictator's death were filmmakers able to loosen the close-knit bond between ideology and cinema and work on topics beyond the present socialist reality.

The Golden Year of 1969

This phase also included the Golden Year of 1969 which saw two of the most important Estonian movies produced: Kevade by Aaro Kruusement and Viimane reliikvia by Grigori Kromanov, both of them literary adaptaions. Kromanov's film was even released in more than 60 countries and constituted a commercial milestone as well as an artistic one. Five years later animation film director Priit Pärn started his career, which would bring him awards at film festivals all over the world, including Cannes and Ottawa.

The next caesura in Estonia's film history was marked by the fall of the Eastern Bloc. This collapse left behind massive chunks of cinematic debris, as the abundant subsidization went down together with the ruling classes' interest in cinematic art. This is underscored by some sad fates like the one of director Leida Laius: Once celebrated as her country's greatest filmmaker she had to work at a lottery counter after the fall of the Iron Curtain. The year 1996 then marked the low point of this trend with not a single new Estonian feature film seeing the light of a projector.

A National Film Fund in 1997

The next year the national film fund „Eesti Filmi Sihtasutus“ was brought to life, reversing the trend, that has been pointing upwards ever since. Their budget of 3.43 mio. Euro for 2010 may seem rather churlish, especially when seen in the context of a nation providing every one of their inhabitants with free W-Lan coverage. But Estonia has built up an international reputation over these last couple of years for producing small but skilful films: special mentions in that department should go to to cult film and counterculture apotheosis Sigade revolutsioon (2004) as well as to Ilmar Raag's mobbing drama Klass (2007).

With three universities providing practical film courses and the annual Pimedate Ööde Filmifestival being established in Tallinn the path seems clear towards a vibrant Estonian film culture. It may be a way travelled on wheels, as a rather original idea has a specially made cinema-bus driving around the country since 2001, bringing moving pictures to places where people know cinema only from hearsay. So sometimes there is something easy within something difficult, and often it can only be seen under exceptional circumstances.

Links

• Eesti Kunstakademia
• Tallinna Ülikoll
• Baltic Film and Media School
• Eesti Filmi Sihtasutus
• Pimedate Ööde Filmifestival

• RAMPCRAMP (EST 2008. Elen Lotman, Katrin Sipelgas)