Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival

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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 Northern Europe or the Baltic region with a FIAPF (International Federation of Film Producers Association) accreditation for holding an International Competitive Feature Film Program, which places it alongside 14 other non-specialised competitive world festivals including Berlin, Cannes, Venice, Karlovy Vary, Warsaw, and San Sebastian. With over 250 feature films from more than 70 different countries (2016) screened, and an attendance of over 80,000 (2016), PÖFF is the largest film festival in Northern Europe and the biggest annual cultural event in Estonia. The festival hosts nearly 300 festival guests and 700 industry delegates each year.

The Festival runs three competitive programs: Official Selection, First Feature Competition, and Estonian Film Competition. The top prize of the festival is the Golden Wolf, given to the director and producer of the winning film of the Official Selection. The festival also hosts several non-competitive programs including the Screen International Critics' Choice, various retrospectives, and a panorama of the best films of the year.

Running concurrently with the festival is [email protected] and the Baltic Event Co-Production Market, the biggest audiovisual industry meeting in the region. [email protected] consists of the International Sales and Distributors Meeting Point; the European Genre Forum, a creative camp for genre professionals promoting 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. For 2017 the festival has teamed up with the Culture Ministry of Estonia to co-host and co-curate the Estonia’s European Union Presidency Conference Pictured Futures: Connecting Content, Tech & Policy In Audiovisual Europe.

In addition, two sub-festivals take part concurrently with the main program: Children’s and Youth Film Festival Just Film, and PÖFF SHORTS, dedicated to short films and animations .^[1] BNFF also organises two smaller film festivals: Haapsalu Horror and Fantasy Film Festival, and Tartu Love Film Festival tARTuFF.