26/10/2015 - The latest films by Laila Pakalnina, Marian Crisan and Iglika Triffonova, among others, will have their world premieres at the Estonian festival

The Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival has announced the Main Competition line-up for its 19^th edition. The 2015 line-up showcases 18 films from 21 countries - with seven world premieres, three international and eight European premieres.

Festival director Tiina Lokk says: “I’m really pleased with the selection of countries and the genre versatility of the programme, including directors at very different stages in their careers. What we have is a mix of different ways of storytelling coming from different continents and cultures that are competing with each other, but also having a lot in common in terms of values and messages.”

Amongst the world premieres is the latest film by award-winning Latvian auteur Laila Pakalnina. Her Latvia-Estonia co-production Dawn [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] is a re-take on the Soviet propaganda story of the young martyr Pavlik Morozov, who turns his state-betraying father in to the authorities and then has to face his family's anger. Also on offer is Orizont [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Marian Crisan
film profile] from Romanian writer-director Marian Crisan (news), which sees a family that has just opened a roadside guesthouse encountering local mobsters trying to get a cut of the profit in exchange for "protection". The other European films having their world premieres are Bulgarian director Iglika Triffonova’s The Prosecutor, the Defender, the Father and His Son [+see also:
film review
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interview: Iglika Triffonova
film profile], Georgian director Vano Burduli’s The Summer of Frozen Fountains [+see also:
film review
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interview: Salome Demuria
interview: Vano Burduli
film profile] and Armenian director-scriptwriter David Safarian’s 28:94 Local Time [+see also:
film review
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interview: Yana Drouz & David Safarian
film profile] – while Mexican film Epitaph by Rubén Imaz and Yulene Olaizola, and Let Her Cry by Sri Lankan director Asoka Handagama will also see the light of day at the festival.

International premieres will include The Bride [+see also:
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interview: Paula Ortiz
film profile] by Spanish director Paula Ortiz, Under the Sun [+see also:
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film profile] by Russian director Vitaliy Manskiy and Insight by his fellow countryman Aleksandr Kott. In the European premieres, audiences will get the chance to see Joost van Ginkel’s The Paradise Suite [+see also:
film review
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film profile], the Netherlands' submission for the Oscars in the Best Foreign-language Film category, which follows six strangers from different parts of the world whose paths cross in the underground sex-slave business of Amsterdam, as well as Black [+see also:
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interview: Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fal…
interview: Martha Canga Antonio
film profile] by Belgian directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, Happy Hour [+see also:
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film profile] by German director Franz Miller, South Korea's Foreign-language Oscar submission The Throne by Lee Joon-ik, Kazakhstan's submission to the Oscars Stranger by Yermek Tursunov, US film The Automatic Hate by Justin Lerner, Iranian filmmaker Morteza Farshbaf’s Avalanche and Zinnia Flower by Taiwanese director Tom Lin.

The 19th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival will run from 13-29 November, with the awards ceremony taking place on 27 November. Industry@Tallinn will run from 16-20 November.