Elmo Nüganen

Directing

Elmo Nüganen

Born 1962-02-15 · Jõhvi, Kohtla-Järve District, Estonian SSR, USSR [now Ida-Viru County, Estonia]

Elmo Nüganen (born February 15, 1962 in Jõhvi) is an Estonian theatre director, film director, and actor. He has been the artistic director of the Tallinn City Theatre since 1992. He was a graduate of the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre in 1988 and then a professor at the academy in 1998–2002 and 2008–2012. He directed the war films Names in Marble from 2002 and 1944 from 2015. Names in Marble was seen by more than 168,000 people in Estonia and was selected for the 2003 Taormina Film Fest, while 1944 had the highest opening-week audience numbers in Estonian film history and became the country's submission for the Academy Awards. Nüganen has received multiple awards for his work in theatre, including the Estonian Annual Theatre Award for Best Director in 1992, 1995, 2000, 2007, and 2010, and the Estonian National Cultural Award in 1996, 1999, and 2009.

Acting credits

Tangerines poster
7.7

War in Abkhazia, 1992. An Estonian man Ivo has stayed behind to harvest his crops of tangerines. In a bloody conflict at his door, a wounded man is left behind, and Ivo is forced to take him in.

Tangerines

2013

No artwork available
6.5

A short film about an old actress Leida Rammo who tries to complete an unfinished theatre house project.

August välja

2014

One-Dimensional Man poster
4.0

Raul's father Viktor, a Soviet-era Estonian militia officer, shaped his son with communist ideology. Raul was raised in a violent and pathological attitude of the despotic father, blindly driven by the ideology. Driven by his jealousy of his wife and her bohemian lifestyle, Viktor, being a high ranking KGB officer, stated her as a predator against the Soviet nation, and one early morning she is taken by KGB agents to an unknown destination.

One-Dimensional Man

2025

Prompter poster
4.3

The last film directed by Kaljo Kiisk has been dedicated to theatre and the people in theatre. You are entering the hectic world of musicians, zanies and jesters - and don't expect to hear a symphony but a single delicate sound of a flute.

Prompter

1993

Purge poster
6.8

Aliide experienced The Great Terror under Stalin’s regime, and decades after her hometown people were deported to Siberia, she lives alone in an isolated house. One night, she finds a young woman in her yard – Zara has just escaped from the claws of the Russian mafia that held her as a sex slave. Survivors both, Aliide and Zara engage in unearthing each other’s motives and gradually their stories merge into one, revealing the tragedy of a family during the cruelest years in Estonian history.

Purge

2012

Dawn of War poster
6.1

A historical spy-thriller set in 1939 about an Estonian intelligence agent tasked with uncovering the Soviet double agent in their ranks.

Dawn of War

2020

Marraskuun harmaa valo poster
6.2

Kari Syysmäki, a Finnish Businessman is on a vacation with his wife in Tallinn. When his wife is away a young man enters their hotel room with a gun. He tells to the businessman that he has just tried to rob a bank, but accidentally shot one of the clerks. Now he's hiding from the cops. But when the bank robber forgets his gun on the table, Syysmäki grabs it and shoots him in the back. After that Syysmäki refuses to travel back to Finland with his wife. He stays in Tallinn and soon he's about to face both the cops and the mob of Estonia.

Marraskuun harmaa valo

1993

Father, Son and Holy Theatre poster
NR

Alar Sudak alias Elaan is the don Quijote of Estonian theatre - predestined to eternal loneliness. Sudak's dream to become an officially acknowledged actor has never come true. He has failed the entrace exams to the Drama School of Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre and other schools. The documentary tells a story related to the Old Testament - including good-hearted Satan, water wars, unrequited love of theatre, jurisprudence, community's revenge that lasts over several generations and regimes. Elaan's life and destiny includes so much drama that he is unable to let go of it - as his actor's spirit cannot live without it.

Father, Son and Holy Theatre

2010

Love for Three Oranges poster
7.9

"Love for Three Oranges" is the first play by Carlo Gozzi (December 13, 1720 - April 4, 1806). He wrote it in 1761. The play is based on a parody of the fairy tale "Love Against Three Oranges". It was originally written as canovaccio (the explanation of the content on which commedia dell'arte actors improvise the text), but later Gozzi also added some dialogue instructions and critical explanations.

Love for Three Oranges

1994

Rebel with a Bow Tie poster
NR

Jaan Tootsen’s documentary follows President Toomas Hendrik Ilves in the last year and a half of his term in office – as he grapples with the complexities of world politics and his private life. Tootsen’s keen camera eye follows Ilves at his most difficult moments, showing no mercy, but creating a gripping, rather harsh and at the same time very human portrait of the President.

Rebel with a Bow Tie

2025

Sunday Only poster
9.0

50s quiet Estonian town. After a long separation, two brothers met in their parents' house. The younger one, Ilmar, a formerly capable artist, has just been released under an amnesty from a camp where he ended up for some youthful prank. Older brother Alex, by nature a more reserved person who prefers to find compromise solutions, is the complete opposite of Ilmar. The meeting of the brothers develops into a conflict, complicated by the fact that Ilmar got in touch with repeat offenders in the camp, and now they are threatening him with violence.

Sunday Only

1990

No artwork available
NR

In Soviet Estonia, one woman's tragedy intersects with a doctor's inner struggle: to obey the orders of an authoritarian system or risk losing everything in the name of truth.

Serafima

2027

Mushrooming poster
5.8

Politician Aadu Kägu goes to the mushroom forest with his wife Viivi to rest his nerves from the reputation campaign. They are joined by a voter, penniless rock star Zäk. In order to avoid common mushroom forests, they drive to some countryside at random. Soon the trio discovers that they are lost, at the same time a media scandal breaks out - the investigative press suspects that Kägu has misused state money. The fight for honor, life and death begins, both in the forest and in the city.

Mushrooming

2012

Portugal poster
5.7

Karina and Martin are in a pleasent relation where everyday life flows in an effortlessly accustomed way and no small misbehaviours can shake it’s rush. Life is good. Perhaps it’s this perfection and frequent patterns that make them finally pose a question – is everything to be expected in life? This is a story about following the yearning of your soul. Longing for something other than the present and having the courage to be deliberately lost.

Portugal

2018

Names in Marble poster
5.9

Despite peaceful speeches, the army of the Soviet Russian is attacking Estonia, and the country's government is declaring a mobilization for all. Henn Ahas, the son of a poor family, hesitates to go to war.

Names in Marble

2002

Demons poster
8.0

When Joko, Ants and Reeda, all in their own good reasons, first enter a casino, they can't possibly be aware of the very existence of the demons inside them. Soon enough, they will know. But then it is already too late and their lives are suddenly caught in a fatal vortex.

Demons

2012

For Crazies Only poster
4.8

A young man is taken to a small town hospital after a suicide attempt. Rita is a beautiful married Russian nurse taking care of him.

For Crazies Only

1991

Conversation poster
NR

The Old Woman lives in a deep Estonian forest, alone and isolated. Her parents came here to settle to raise and educate their children in the right way. They all died long ago. The Old Woman leads her farm, until one day her world almost collapses due to the intrusion of a lost stranger.

Conversation

2022

Behind the camera

1944 poster
6.9

The events of the war in 1944, from the Blue Hills to Sõrve Peninsula. Shown through the eyes of Estonian soldiers who had to pick sides and fight against fellow brothers. Choices have to be made, not only by the soldiers, but also by their loved ones.

1944

2015

Burattino poster
NR

Born from the fairytale of Alexei Tolstoy, a lively story about a curious tree boy Burattino who gets into an unexpected adventure.

Burattino

2002

Melchior the Apothecary poster
6.8

In medieval Tallinn, a famous knight who is freed from the pirates of the Baltic Sea is murdered. The hero's head is cut off and his mouth is stuffed with coins. The gold chain he bought the same day is missing. The bailiff orders Melchior, an apothecary, to investigate the crime. The clever young man discovers that the slain was looking for a mysterious "Tallinn prisoner" and the traces lead to the Dominican monastery. A fabulous sequence of bloodwork is unleashed - anyone who comes into contact with this secret is in danger of dying.

Melchior the Apothecary

2022

Melchior the Apothecary poster
6.8

In medieval Tallinn, a famous knight who is freed from the pirates of the Baltic Sea is murdered. The hero's head is cut off and his mouth is stuffed with coins. The gold chain he bought the same day is missing. The bailiff orders Melchior, an apothecary, to investigate the crime. The clever young man discovers that the slain was looking for a mysterious "Tallinn prisoner" and the traces lead to the Dominican monastery. A fabulous sequence of bloodwork is unleashed - anyone who comes into contact with this secret is in danger of dying.

Melchior the Apothecary

2022

Melchior the Apothecary: The Ghost poster
6.6

In the middle of the night, a drunk town guard happens to meet the daughter of a rich merchant… who drowned herself into a well 10 years ago. Soon after the town guard falls dead from the tower. This is followed by two other suspicious deaths. Doubting the existence of the ghost, Melchior has a hunch that these ‘accidents’ are part of a heinous crime. Tracking down the killer, his path will cross with heretics, old feuds and dark family secrets.

Melchior the Apothecary: The Ghost

2022

Melchior the Apothecary: The Ghost poster
6.6

In the middle of the night, a drunk town guard happens to meet the daughter of a rich merchant… who drowned herself into a well 10 years ago. Soon after the town guard falls dead from the tower. This is followed by two other suspicious deaths. Doubting the existence of the ghost, Melchior has a hunch that these ‘accidents’ are part of a heinous crime. Tracking down the killer, his path will cross with heretics, old feuds and dark family secrets.

Melchior the Apothecary: The Ghost

2022

Love for Three Oranges poster
7.9

"Love for Three Oranges" is the first play by Carlo Gozzi (December 13, 1720 - April 4, 1806). He wrote it in 1761. The play is based on a parody of the fairy tale "Love Against Three Oranges". It was originally written as canovaccio (the explanation of the content on which commedia dell'arte actors improvise the text), but later Gozzi also added some dialogue instructions and critical explanations.

Love for Three Oranges

1994

Love for Three Oranges poster
7.9

"Love for Three Oranges" is the first play by Carlo Gozzi (December 13, 1720 - April 4, 1806). He wrote it in 1761. The play is based on a parody of the fairy tale "Love Against Three Oranges". It was originally written as canovaccio (the explanation of the content on which commedia dell'arte actors improvise the text), but later Gozzi also added some dialogue instructions and critical explanations.

Love for Three Oranges

1994

Melchior the Apothecary: The Executioner's Daughter poster
6.4

Melchior’s bride Keterlyn happens to witness an attack on a young man. The victim, who has lost his memory, does not know who he is and how he ended up in a Tallinn. A ring found at the scene leads Melchior to the trail of the nocturnal brotherhood, questions are also raised by the troupe of freaks who performed on fair day. Ominous signs suggest that not only is the stranger recovering from a murder attempt at risk, but Melchior and Keterlyn as well. At the same time, an inquisitor known as a ruthless witch hunter arrives in town. Melchior's ability to "speak to the dead" and to notice invisible traces of murder have raised the suspicion that he may be a dangerous heretic. And the place of the enemy of the church is at the stake…

Melchior the Apothecary: The Executioner's Daughter

2023

Melchior the Apothecary: The Executioner's Daughter poster
6.4

Melchior’s bride Keterlyn happens to witness an attack on a young man. The victim, who has lost his memory, does not know who he is and how he ended up in a Tallinn. A ring found at the scene leads Melchior to the trail of the nocturnal brotherhood, questions are also raised by the troupe of freaks who performed on fair day. Ominous signs suggest that not only is the stranger recovering from a murder attempt at risk, but Melchior and Keterlyn as well. At the same time, an inquisitor known as a ruthless witch hunter arrives in town. Melchior's ability to "speak to the dead" and to notice invisible traces of murder have raised the suspicion that he may be a dangerous heretic. And the place of the enemy of the church is at the stake…

Melchior the Apothecary: The Executioner's Daughter

2023

Names in Marble poster
5.9

Despite peaceful speeches, the army of the Soviet Russian is attacking Estonia, and the country's government is declaring a mobilization for all. Henn Ahas, the son of a poor family, hesitates to go to war.

Names in Marble

2002

Names in Marble poster
5.9

Despite peaceful speeches, the army of the Soviet Russian is attacking Estonia, and the country's government is declaring a mobilization for all. Henn Ahas, the son of a poor family, hesitates to go to war.

Names in Marble

2002

Mindless poster
4.9

A rich businessman moves to countryside to give his life a meaning.

Mindless

2006

Mindless poster
4.9

A rich businessman moves to countryside to give his life a meaning.

Mindless

2006