29/10/2007

In the year that saw the Estonian cinema awarded at Venice (Autumn Ball [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Veiko Õunpuu), the RomeFilmFest has also looked to the Baltics, and presents The Class [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Ilmar Raag.

The film – winner of the the Europa Cinemas Label at Karlovy Vary this year – shook up audiences of the New Cinema Network (NCN) with the (mostly psychological) violence of its story, which recounts daily bullying at a high school like any other.

The tragic epilogue is reminiscent of Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine and Gus Van Sant’s Elephant, proving the universal nature of its theme.

“Events like these take place everywhere, in the US as in Finland or Lithuania,” the director told audiences at a Q&A, adding that personal also inspired him to debut with this harsh portrait of adolescence. “I feel guilty for my behaviour as a child, when I would just watch episodes like those, without intervening”.

Unlike his protagonist Kaspar (Vallo Kirs), who in defending “weakling” Joosep (Pärt Uusberg) becomes a victim of his classmates.

While the overall story (and especially the ending) are fiction, the single facts comprising it are all documented: “I spoke to 15 kids under the age of 18, who related their experiences to me, and onscreen there is just a small part of the stories I gathered. Not even the most disturbing ones,” he said.

As he waits to find out whether The Class, submitted by Estonia for the Oscar race, will make it to the shortlist of nominees, Raag (39) is preparing his second feature, One More Croissant, a melodrama “similar to the films of Almodóvar, inspired by personal events in my mother’s life, and how a trip to Paris changed her, lifting her from her depression. It will be a touching film, on a chance meeting between two desperate people who learn a lot from one another.”

At NCN to close the approximately €1.6m budget of his second film, the Estonian director can already count on the producers of Amrion, support from the Media Plus Programme (€40,000), the Estonian Film Foundation (€32,000), the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and the EFF MEDIA Desk.

(Translated from Italian)