Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival

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Black Nights Film Festival
PÖFF logo.svg
Location Tallinn, Estonia
Founded 1997
Awards Golden Wolf/ Wolf
No. of films 268 features (2014)
Website www.blacknightsfilmfestival.com

Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, or PÖFF ( Estonian: Pimedate Ööde Filmifestival), is an annual film festival held since 1997 in Tallinn, the capital city of Estonia. PÖFF is the only festival in the Nordic and Baltic region with a FIAPF (International Federation of Film Producers Association) accreditation for holding an international competition programme in the Nordic and Baltic region with 14 other non-specialised festivals, such as Berlin, Cannes, Venice, Karlovy Vary, Warsaw and San Sebastian. With over 250 feature films from more than 75 different countries (2015) screened and over 80000 attendances (2015), PÖFF is one of the biggest film festivals of Northeastern Europe and cultural events in Estonia in the winter season.

The Festival runs three competitive programs - International Competition, The Tridens First Film Competition and The Tridens Estonian Feature competition. The top prize of the festival is the Golden Wolf, given to the director and producer of the best film of the International Competition programme. Also, the festival hosts several non-competitive programmes, including the Screen International Critics' Choice, as well as several retrospectives, a panorama of the best films of the year, and other special programmes.

Concurrently with the festival takes place Industry@Tallinn, the annual summit of film industry events of Black Nights Film Festival, Baltic Event co-production market, and in 2015 the European Film Forum Tallinn, organised in partnership with European Commission. Industry @ Tallinn comprises the international Sales and Distributors Meeting Point, European Genre Forum - a creative camp for genre professionals for project and skills development - and two works in progress panels: the presentations of regional upcoming films from Baltic, Finnish and old CIS countries and international screenings ranging from Asia to Latin America.

There are three sub-festivals taking part concurrently with the main programme: Children’s and Youth Film Festival Just Film, Animation Film Festival Animated Dreams, International Short Film Festival Sleepwalkers . [1] In addition BNFF organises two smaller film festivals: Haapsalu Horror and Fantasy Film Festival and Tartu Love Film Festival tARTuFF.

History

2015 Tallinn Black Nights Film festival Award Ceremony

When it began in 1997, PÖFF was principally a showcase for Nordic film with 4500 attendances, but as the festival has grown it has dramatically expanded its overview. Today BNFF is one of the largest film events in Northern Europe. During its 19th edition in 2015 the festival screened more than 600 films (including 250+ feature-length films from 80 different countries), bringing over 900 screenings to an audience of over 80, 000 people as well as over 700 accredited guests and journalists from 50 different countries. In 2010 the festival held the European Film Awards ceremony in Tallinn and in 2015 the European Film Forum conference was held here in co-operation with the European Commission. BNFF was recognised by FIAPF in 2011 and upgraded in 2014, as the first festival in Northern Europe, gaining the competitive feature film festival accreditation, joining 14 other major festivals in the world. [2]

Notable filmmakers, actors and industry professionals that have visited PÖFF include Aki Kaurismäki, Krzysztof Zanussi, Olga Kurylenko, Lee Joon-ik, Jos Stelling, Jan Troell, Catherine Breillat, Roy Andersson, Fridrik Thor Fridriksson, Neil Jordan, Philip Glass, Lukas Moodysson, Michael Nyman, Jerzy Stuhr, Tom Schilling, Pen-ek Ratanaruang, Isaach de Bankole, Fiona Shaw, Sergei Loznitsa, Ross Partridge, Mikael Persbrandt, Vassilis Mazomenos and many others.