An intimate portrait of Southern Estonian men enjoying a smoke sauna together after a hard day of work.
Supported by
Community Partner
Rasmus Kaljujärv, Agur Seim
Estonia
2024
In Estonian with English subtitles
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits & Director
Producer
Johanna Maria Paulson, Evelin Penttilä
Screenwriter
Anna Hints, Tushar Prakash
Cinematography
Ants Tammik
Editor
Emeri Abel
Production Design
Inga Vares
Anna Hints
Anna Hints is an Estonian film director with a background in the contemporary art scene and experimental music. Anna is deeply rooted in the distinct culture of South Estonia, yet for 5 years her second home has been India. Anna studied literature, folklore and has a degree both in Photography and Film Directing. Anna’s debut short fiction Ice (2017), which received the Best Short Film award at the Estonian Film and TV Awards, has been screened at more than 95 film festivals and won 14 awards worldwide. Anna’s feature debut Smoke Sauna Sisterhood (2023) had its world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, where it competed in the World Cinema Documentary Competition and won the Directing Award at the World Cinema Documentary Competition. It was selected as the Estonian entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards and won the award for Best Documentary at the 36th European Film Awards.
Tushar Prakash
Tushar Prakash is an Indian filmmaker, who is a graduate of the National Polish Film School in Lodz. Since 2020 he has been living in Estonia. His graduation film Jestem OK (2012) won the Best Student Fiction Film and The Polish Film Society Award For Artistic Courage & Bravery at the Lodzia Po Wiśle student film festival in Warsaw. The film also won the Honorable Mention at the Koszalin Film Festival in Poland. He co-directed The Karma Killings (2016), a feature documentary on the infamous Nithari serial killings, the first Indian documentary to be acquired by Neflix. He was also the editor for the Indian short film Circus (2018) directed by Tariq Vasudeva, the film premiered at the Moscow International Film Festival 2018. His feature fiction film in development has participated at the Produire Au Sud workshop in France and La Fabrique Des Cinémas Du Monde at the Cannes Film Festival where it was mentored by Claire Dennis. He is amongst the first Indian alumni of EAVE.
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
The Blue Trail
77-year-old Tereza makes a break for the Brazilian jungle in this trippy septuagenarian fantasy, the latest from Brazilian director Gabriel Mascaro is a quirky picaresque, lushly photographed and filled with mordant humour.
Calle Málaga
Seventy-nine-year-old María Ángeles lives independently in Tangier's Spanish quarter. When her daughter pressures her into selling her apartment, she refuses to give in, finding in her old age a new resilience and an unexpected romantic connection.
Two Prosecutors
In the midst of Stalin’s purges, a naïve prosecutor sets out to investigate a prisoner’s innocence, unaware of the labyrinthine bureaucracy awaiting him. A Kafkaesque procedural thriller about the pursuit of justice in the face of corruption.
Image: © SBS Productions
The Skeleton of Mrs Morales
In this delightful black comedy, an avuncular taxidermist (our old amigo Arturo de Córdova) is beloved by many but not his wife (Amparo Rivelles), a religious fanatic who can't bear to be touched. One day she pushes him too far...
The Eyes of Ghana
In his debut feature doc Ben Proudfoot unearths the story — and the images — of Chris Hesse, personal cameraman to Ghana's revolutionary leader, Kwame Nkrumah, who was deposed in a coup in 1966. This is a fascinating history reclaimed from the archives.