For the first time ever, the 11^th Les Arcs Film Festival is focusing on four countries (see the news), and Estonia will be one of the nations under the spotlight at the leading French gathering from 14-21 December. The country will be represented by two short films in the Official Competition, two projects in the Coproduction Village, as well as two features and five shorts that will be screened under the umbrella of the special spotlight.

Audiences will be able to enjoy a double Estonian presentation in the Short Films Competition, which will be screened in the Igloo, a screening room made of snow and perched at an altitude of 2,200 metres. Estonian animation director Chintis Lundgren, who currently resides in Croatia, will be presenting her latest animated short, Toomas Beneath the Valley of the Wild Wolves (Estonia/France/Croatia), which follows an attractive young wolf who, after losing his well-paid engineering job, gets forced into working as a gigolo to support his family. In his debut short film, Bad Hair (Estonia), Oskar Lehemaa follows the insecure and balding Leo, who has locked himself in his apartment to try out hair-growth liquid in order to improve his looks. The film will be screened at Les Arcs ahead of its upcoming premiere in Sundance’s International Narrative Short Films section.

In the Coproduction Village (14-17 December), of the 22 projects selected (see the news), two of them hail from Estonia. In his upcoming project The Invisible Fight, Rainer Sarnet, whose latest feature November [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Rea Lest
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The other project is Dark Paradise by writer-director Triin Ruumet, who belongs to the younger generation of Estonian filmmakers and who rose to prominence through her bold debut, The Days That Confused [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Martti Helde
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Also, a case study on Compartment No 6 [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Juho Kuosmanen
scheda film]), will take place. The film, which follows a young Finnish woman who flees a love triangle to take the Trans-Siberian Railway to the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar, is co-written by Estonians Livia Ulman and Andris Feldmanis (Pretenders [+leggi anche:
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Under the Les Arcs Focus programme, and in collaboration with the Estonian Film Institute, the festival will also screen a selection of two features and a batch of shorts by both well-known and up-and-coming filmmakers. The features selected are Veiko Õunpuu’s debut feature, Autumn Ball [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] (Estonia) by Kadri Kõusaar. Furthermore, three shorts by acclaimed Estonian animation director Priit Pärn will be featured in the Focus: the titles are Life Without Gabriella Ferri, Divers in the Rain and Pilots on the Way Home. Also, in the shorts selection, Teofrastus by Sergei Kibus and Piano by Kaspar Jancis, will get an airing.