Deep Love, Daughter, Toomas in the 2019 PÖFF Shorts Winners

42 films competed this year at the Animation Competition programme of PÖFF Shorts festival in Tallinn. 27 films were competing in the International Animation Competition, while 15 were in the New Talents (student films) competition.

 The international animation jury for both International Competition and New Talents competition  Chiara Magri (Italy), Nicolas Khabbaz(Lebanon), and Sander Joon (Estonia).

The Lenin-expired, plastic-bags inspired Deep love by Mykyta Lyskov  (Ukraine) won the Best Animation Short award.

Deep love has finally happened in Ukraine.

Jury Statement: For the straightforward message reflected in a complex treatment, the crude style works very well to be funny and bitter, light and deep.

Special Mention went to heartfelt elegy of Lola, the Living Potato by Leonid Shmelkov (Russia/France).

Lola, a six-year-old girl, lives with her mother, four month old brother and their dog, in a very old country house. Lola live sin a world of her fantasies, where she communicates with her deceased grandfather. Everything changes when she finds out that the house is on sale.

Jury Statement: A film that overcomes the barrier to reach the inner child in us, in a beautiful depiction of loss and new beginning.

In the New Talents competition (student films), the stop-motion Daughter by Daria Kashcheeva won yet another award .

jury Statement: A mastered storytelling piece about a father and daughter relationship. Conveying powerful deep emotions from animated puppets. Using live action cinematic techniques and successfully crossing

The Special Mention went to the Estonian sci-fi parody Zorg II by Auden Lincoln-Vogel, an American student of the Estonian Academy of Arts.

An alien comes to earth in hopes of starring in a sci-fi blockbuster.

Jury Statement: For its exploding ideas and bravery in style.

In the National Competition, a selection of mixed Estonian live-action and animation films competed. The jury of  Eva Näripea (Estonia), Marina D. Richter (Serbia, Austria), and Marija Milovanovic (Austria) gave its award to the animation film Toomas Beneath the Valley of the Wild Wolves by Chintis Lundgren, an Estonian/ Croatian/French co-production. 

After losing a well paid engineering job, Toomas, a young hot wolf, gets cornered into working as a gigolo to support his family. He is keeping it as a secret from his pregnant wife Viivi. Viivi also has a secret: she is attending a female empowerment seminar involving male slaves. When Toomas gets a role in a sexploitation movie, it becomes harder to keep his new profession a secret.

Jury Statement: It is a playful and smoothly developed script, wonderfully freed of cliches and rich in imagination. Political incorrectness is consciously used as an inclusion tool - male, female, cats and dogs. Empowerment belongs to everyone. The filmmaker shows how fragile the concept of an ideal family and morality is, but doesn’t turn it into a downfall of family bounds. A big howl for Toomas beneath the valley of the wild wolves

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