Competition Programme  

Disco and Atomic War tells the story of a strange kind of information war, where a totalitarian regime stands face to face with the heroes of popular culture and loses. Western popular culture had an unequalled role in shaping Soviet children's worldview in ways that now seem slightly odd. Finnish TV was a window to a world of dreams that the authorities could not block. Though Finnish channels were banned, many households found some way to access this forbidden fruit. For his film on collective memory, history as a whole, and the smaller stories behind it, Kilmi made use of a number of TV series, movies, commercials, and news broadcasts, and also dramatizing many of his own memories. Interviews with the former heads of Finnish and Estonian TV and Edward Lucas, author of The New Cold War, provide a historical perspective to it.

 Festivals and Awards

Warsaw International Film Festival, Poland (2009) – the Award for the Best Documentary Film
Trieste Film Festival, Italy (2010)
Krakow International Film Festival, Poland (2009)
Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival (2010)
Helsinki International Film Festival “Love and Anarchy”, Finland (2009)
Pärnu International Documentary and Anthropological Film Festival, Estonia (2009)

Jaak Kilmi

 He was born in 1973 in Estonia. He graduated from the Department of Culture of Tallinn Pedagogical University, where he majored in directing. He has directed and produced a string of award-winning short films, a number of documentary films and two feature films, with one of them received a Film of the Year award. His films haves received international recognition and have often been broadcasted abroad. He has made commercials for Baltic TV and is the author of critical essays on books and film. He has been a member of the Estonian Association of Film Journalists (the Estonian branch of FIPRESCI) since 1995. He is well-known for his socio-critical feature films and documentary films that deal with the Soviet era and its repercussions on life in Estonia today.

Selected Filmography

The Art of Selling / Müümise kunst (2006)
Elusive Miracle / Tabamata ime (2006)
Revolution of Pigs / Sigade revolutsioon (2004)
Beauty of the Fatherland / Krása vlasti (2001)