Countries & Movies: Estonia

 The cinematography of little Estonia is represented in the Golden Thousand by two films. Not every, even a larger country, is represented in the Golden Thousand by at least one film. The first of the two on this list is the 2013 film "Mandariinid (Tangerines)" by the Georgian director Zaza Urushadze.

Georgia took part in the making of the film not only in the person of the director. But at most international film festivals, the film represented Estonia. And we will not dispute that. Moreover, a significant part of the so-called Georgian public assessed this film very negatively, that is, one can say that Georgia has actually renounced copyright for this film.

The premiere of the film "Tangerines" took place on October 16, 2013 at the International Film Festival in Warsaw. At this film festival, the film "Tangerines" was nominated for the main prize - the Grand Prix. But this prize "went" to the Polish film "Ida" by Pavel Pawlikowski. However, "Tangerines" did not remain without awards from this festival. Zaza Urushadze was awarded the Best Director award, and the film itself received the Audience Award.

Two years later, the film "Tangerines" was first nominated for the American Golden Globe Award as Best Foreign Language Film, but lost this award to the Russian film "Leviathan" by Andrey Zvyagintsev. And then Tangerines received a similar Oscar nomination. But again, the preference was given to the film "Ida". The company of relative "losers" to Zaza Urushadze's film was the Russian "Leviathan" and the Argentinean film "Relatos salvajes (Wild Tales)".

During the Warsaw Film Festival, the film's director gave an interview to Polish journalist Tomasz Piechal. In this interview, Zaza Urushadze tried several times to disown politics: “My picture should not be perceived as a political manifesto, a work that has drowned in everyday strife between states. This is, first of all, a story about people who find themselves in a situation that exceeds their capabilities, which leads to the fact that they lose their humanity .... in my film I run from politics, I want to show, first of all, the significance of that value, which is forgotten in conflict situations. The values of humanity."

However, even Tomasz Piechal allowed himself, let's say, not to completely believe the Georgian director, saying to him: “I was particularly impressed by another scene related to Russian soldiers, who for all the heroes of the film are becoming real enemies. So, although you are disowning politics in the film, apparently this is not entirely true."  The same scene, by the way, caused very negative emotions among some Kinopoisk users.

The Georgian public, or rather, the Georgian film critics, also saw a clear political subtext in the film, and in a negative light for themselves. So, the Georgian film critic Eric Grigolia, by the way, who lives in Latvia, in his review called the film a "masterpiece", which ... clearly reflects self-flagellation or an attempt to jump out of the pants of Georgian directors filming about the war in Abkhazia, about which, throughout apparently, they have absolutely no idea." 

He was supported by another Georgian film critic Georgy Ovashvili, who said that Urushadze's picture "turned out to be propaganda, and directed against his own country (a multiple victim of Russian aggression), and, moreover, very effective." 

In Estonia itself, the number of viewers who watched the film in cinemas amounted to 33 thousand people, or about 3% of the population. Despite the seemingly obvious attack on Russian soldiers, which was noticed by both the Polish journalist and some Kinopoisk users, in February 2016 the premiere of this film took place in Russia (for which one can only thank the Russian film distribution), and the film got into Top 250 Kinopoisk.

With a budget of 650 thousand euros (or approximately 864 thousand dollars), its worldwide gross amounted to 1.024 million dollars. That is, the film paid off at the box office, but made little profit.

Despite the noticeable contradictions in the assessments of this film by representatives of different countries, in general, the world cinema audience highly appreciated this joint Estonian-Georgian film. 78% of users of IMDB and Kinopoisk gave this film ratings from 8 to 10, and 28% of users rated the movie "ten".

Taking into account the above, the rating of the film "Tangerines" by Zaza Urushadze, who, unfortunately, who died suddenly in 2019 being 54 y.o., according to FilmGourmand's version, was 8.815, which allowed it to take 209th place in the Golden Thousand.