Mart Avi

In her fondest dreams, this film’s main character Leila (Riina Maidre) is a resplendent singer. In reality, however, all her energy and talent is spent on relationships that eat away at her soul, mind-altering substances, and glamorous showing-off. Heleri defies the rules. By playing with the possibilities of the art of film, she takes the viewer to an uneasy universe where the boundary between reality and illusion is incredibly thin. This is a world that is familiar to everyone who at some point in their life had to grow up and admit to themselves that dreaming is not enough on its own. And who have regardless of that chosen dreaming.

To understand the international phenomenon of Uku Kuut means to understand the ability of different musical niches, sub-genres and hidden creative explosions to not only exist, but flourish, completely independently of the mainstream. Kuut’s life, mothered by Maryn E.Coote (who you may know as the Estonian jazz diva Marju Kuut), took him from the Soviet Union to a refuge in Sweden, music studios in Los Angeles, back to a re-independent Estonia and later, fighting ALS, to loudspeakers all around the world.