Hando Runnel

When love is the greatest torment, will art or play save you? A dramatic documentary about author Vaino Vahing.

A documentary about the XVII Estonian song festival, a celebration of 100 years of song festivals. Shown are the lighting ceremony of the song festival fire, the procession, the choirs, singers and the public, including performance of the Mart Saar song Leelo led by Gustav Ernesaks.

A family who, at the beginning of the story gives up the plan to buy toys, forms the frame for the film. Finally the same toys, the doll and the goose, find their way to them through the Christmas night. The toys’ journey ends with an extraordinary miracle that fits for a Christmas night.

A unique film adaptation of Juhan Liiv's poetry, where literary symbols in poetry are connected with film images. The film set the task of conveying Juhan Liiv's poetry, his tenderness and love for his country. True pictorial poetry, born from the synergy of Hando Runnel's screenplay, Peeter Tooming's cinematography, Peep Puks's directing and Lembit Ulfsak's poetry reading.

This film bears witness to both the Soviet production system and censorship. The view of life on a collective farm depicted here seemed too bleak for the officials involved, and the film was not screened for two decades. What we see is an honest observation of country life presented in a wonderful visual form.