The Big Other

A Serious Thought

The documentary weaves together stage scenes, archival materials and interviews to create a journey through the world of 20th-century theatre. Marist recounts encounters with August Kitzberg, Isadora Duncan, Gloria Swanson, Pablo Picasso, Rabindranath Tagore and other prominent cultural figures of the time. But the further we move in his memories, the blurrier the line between truth and imagination becomes. Was Marist a brilliant theatre man and charming communicator or just a crook with a vivid imagination? In his old age, far away in Canada, the glitter of the world’s big cities and his former dreams gradually begin to recede. Saaremaa, the Nasva Bridge and his mother’s voice emerge again and again in his memories. Behind the magnificent stories, a man finally emerges who tried his whole life to escape from the outskirts to the centre of the world, but at the end of his life still longed to return to his home among the stunted pines.

Aario Alfred Marist: Searching for a Legend

The core of the work is the relationship between the body and the burden it carries. At the beginning of the video, the burden attached to the body is experienced as a sign of restriction and inner anguish. Over the course of the work, this relationship gradually changes. Resistance gives way to observation, adaptation, and new understanding, until the burden also acquires a supportive meaning.

Ambivalent burden

Arnold Rüütel rahva keeles ja meeles

Awaken, My Children

The film follows Mikk during his final evening before entering military service. At home with his older friend Rene, the two engage in aggressive games, mock military rituals, drinking, and conversations shaped by power imbalance and emotional insecurity. After encountering an intoxicated fisherman near Mikk’s car, Rene becomes convinced the man damaged the vehicle and pressures Mikk into confronting him. At a riverside forest area, Rene ambushes the man with an air rifle and encourages Mikk to participate. Under pressure and fear, Mikk eventually shoots at the man as the situation spirals out of control. Later, while driving at night, the friends hit something on the road. Gradually, clues suggest they may have struck the same man. Rene refuses to acknowledge responsibility and insists on moving on, while Mikk becomes increasingly disturbed and emotionally detached. Back home, Mikk silently prepares for military service by shaving his head and packing away the rifle, realizing that the night has permanently changed his understanding of himself, Rene, and violence.

Boars

This is one day. A person whose work is to connect, support, and inspire, to be an invisible link between teachers, children, and the school. Throughout the day, spaces and people change, but the rhythm remains the same: moving, responding, organizing, listening. Together, it forms a kind of symphony. Each role speaks to her in its own voice, and every voice expects a response. The camera does not follow, it observes. Still. Sound guides us, at times too close, at times distant. Sometimes we hear more than we see. Sometimes we see, but hear nothing at all. By evening, in the dance studio, the tempo shifts. She moves, instructs, explains, corrects, smiles. For a moment, it feels as if everything comes together: beauty and rhythm, structure and meaning. But beauty demands effort. What remains when everything else has been done? When the sound finally fades and a rare silence appears? How much silence must a person carry within to keep all this noise in balance. This is a story about anyone trying to divide themselves between multiple worlds: work and home, closeness and responsibility, noise and stillness. It does not seek grand answers, but listens for the moments when a person finally pauses.

Can you hear?

The Estonian Film Database is established for providing textual and visual information about the whole Estonian film heritage from the beginning of local film history in 1912, containing animated and feature films, documentaries, as well as newsreels, educational films, amateur films, advertising films, etc. Editing and updating of the database is done on the constant basis.

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