The 28th edition of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival drew to a close on November 24th, after more than two weeks of intense activity. The figures are impressive. Festival director Tiina Lokk shared some of the most crucial information: “we’ve had a fantastic run over these 16 days, with more than 250 [feature] films, 350 short films from 81 countries, international guests from 60 countries, more than 800 screenings and audience-breaking numbers”. The Festival claims that they exceeded last year’s 88,400 admissions, which is remarkable for a city of less than 500,000 inhabitants, and a country of just 1.3 million people.

DMovies was at the coalface the whole time, with four journalists working full-time in loco, and several more working remotely. I covered the films in the Main Competition, while Paul Risker covered the First Feature Competition, Jeremy Clarke did the Critics’ Picks Strand, and Eoghan Lyng was entirely devoted to the brand new Doc@PÖFF section. Other journalists included Anton Bitel, Marina Richter, Joshua Bogatin, Joshua Polanski, Susanne Gottlieb and Steve Naish. Most of these people have been loyal writers for countless years. We have a lot of faith in our team.

This partnership with PÖFF started in 2018, when I attended the event on my own. Our affinity was such – with s shared passion for thought-provoking and world cinema – that DMovies has now grown to become the Festival’s most prolific and recognised partner. Our relationship this year expanded to include an industry product (Redmond authored in-depth industry reports on various themes, blending input from stakeholders, facts, figures, and his own authoritative analysis) as well as a Film Review Workshop (with 15 “film critics for a day” producing their own film criticism).

My relationship to the Festival isn’t merely a commercial one. It’s a creative, ideological and emotional one. We share some dear values: free speech, tolerance and independence. It is a privilege to work with Tiina, Marge, Eliisa and everybody else. I love PÖFF and I love Estonia!

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The big winners (for the Main Competition)

• Best Picture and Best production Design went to Silent City Driver (Mongolia, Sengedorj Janchivdorj);
• Best Director went to Nir Bergman of The Pink Lady (Israel);
• Special Jury Prize for Pyre (India, Vinod Kapri);
• Best Cinematography and Best Script went to Empire of the Rabbits (Turkey, Seyfettin Tokmak);
• Best Actor went to Lee Hyo-je for his role in The Loop (Korea, Sang Beom-koo);
• Best Actress went to Pirjo Lonka and Elina Knihtila in 100 Litres of Gold (Finland, Teemu Nikki); and
• Best original Score went to Some Nights I Fell Like Walking (Philippines, Petersen Vargas).

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You can see the entire Main Competition selection by clicking here.

All in all, this year’s selection remained broad, geographically diverse, and arthouse-focussed. It was not as strong at the 2022 selection, the strongest one that I encountered in my seven years covering the Main Competition in the Tallinn Black Nights. Nevertheless, I was very pleased that my top 3 favourite films snatched the top 3 prizes: Silent City Driver, The Pink Lady and Pyre (this one is te closest one to my heart).

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A truly vast-reaching coverage

In total, we published 137 pieces throughout the duration of the festival. This includes reviews, articles, interviews, etc). They are broke down into the following categories (click on each item in order to accede to the full list):

• Main Competition (20 pieces);
• First Feature Competitio (13 pieces);
• Critics’s Picks (12 pieces);
• Doc@PÖFF (13 pieces);
• Rebels With a Cause (12 pieces);
• Baltic Competition (15 pieces);
• Industry pieces (six pieces);
• Best of Festivals (28 pieces; these arere mostly republications from other festivals); and
• PÖFF Shorts (18 pieces, including the 15 films from the Film Review Workshop, which I delivered on November 10th).

Pictured at the top is a still from Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist, which showed in the Screen International Critics’ Choice of the 28th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.