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It’s been close to eight decades since two atomic bombs annihilated the Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the only times nuclear weapons have been used in warfare. And in these seventy years, we have learned a lot about the irreparable human costs of nuclear holocaust and the long-lasting hazards of radiation exposure. Yet, the chance of a warring nation deflecting the use of such a weapon in extreme measures couldn’t be deemed impossible. The dark clouds of Cold War may have long perished, but power-hungry governments all over the world tend to toy with their nuclear weaponry. With Ican (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons) winning the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize, the need to recognize the catastrophic consequences of these deadly weapons has only drawn more attention.

For decades, Cinema has done its duty in questioning the blood-lust-driven establishment on its nuclear activities despite its claims to the contrary.

Konstantin Lopushanskiy's The Role Sitting on the Baltic Sea, the capital of this young republic is hunkering down for the winter ahead as the daylight shrinks back to seven hours and the temperatures drop to freezing. This makes the warm glow of a cinema screen all the more appealing, as audiences, with a hearteningly young demographic, queue up for a taste of international cinema at the 17th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival. With 500 films being shown and more than 50 filmmakers heading to town in support, they certainly don't lack choice.

At just past the midway point , the various international competitions are underway and the industry events have begun bringing truckloads of talent to town, with attendees as diverse as Mephisto director István Szabó, who has received the Bnff Lifetime Award this year, and the Canadian producer of Gabrielle and Whitewash Luc Dery, alongside industry delegates such as Alamo Drafthouse founder.

New projects from Pakalnina, Louhimies and Kilmi at Tallinn market.

New films from Laila Pakalnina (Dawn), Aku Louhimies (True) and Jaak Kilmi (Heroes from the East) are among 12 projects from 11 countries selected for this year’s Baltic Event co-production market which will be held in Tallinn from November 27-29.

Local Estonian film-maker Kilmi will be at the Baltic Event for the second year in a row after presenting another feature project, The Hoppers, which won the Screen International Best Pitch Award last year.

As the Baltic Event’s organisers point out, the 2013 line-up has a large number of feature debutants – six in total – ranging from Romania’s Botond-Csaba Püsök (Miracle in Cluj) through Ukraine’s Marysia Nikitiuk (When The Trees Are Falling) to Finland’s Jussi Hiltunen (Law of the Land).

In addition, Julietta Sichel, the former programme director of Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, is coming to Tallinn with her company 8Heads Production and Stanislav Babic of Croatia...

A red letter day. There's a new Senses of Cinema out and it opens with the first part of Daniel Fairfax's interview with Jean-Louis Comolli, who edited Cahiers du cinéma from 1965 to 1973. Senses editor Rolando Caputo: "At the time, Cahiers was undergoing its so-called 'Marxist-Leninist' phase, with a heavy overlay of Lacanian psychoanalytic theory." And Slavoj Žižek would have been in his late teens, early 20s. At any rate: "Put simply, at stake was the demystification of the 'cinematic apparatus' to demonstrate how ideology was both embedded within the technology of cinema and an effect of its representational modes."

Fairfax: "Having steadily made films over the last 40 years — including the magisterial series on the French electoral machine, Marseille contre Marseille (1996) — Comolli has also pursued a prolonged theoretical pre-occupation with the cinema, which, in various ways, is profoundly defined by his earlier participation in Cahiers. Refreshingly, he has never sought to repudiate his radical past,...

Konstantin Lopushansky, protege of auteur Andrei Tarkovsky is working on his next which unfortunately is not a Strugatsky adaptation or even science fiction. A drama set in 1919 which he will both write and direct, the story revolves around a man pulling a doppleganger on a Red Army leader. We've included more details below and some choice trailers for Lopushansky's works.

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Not to be confused with the Spanish stigmata drama we've been following, this is actually a short film which looks incredibly post apocalyptic with lots of sick experimentation and reminiscent of Konstantin Lopushansky's Pisma Myortvogo Cheloveka which was co-written by Boris Strugatsky. Another great find from our friend D'mooN at Opium.

During World War II, German scientists developed Futhark Five, a substance that allowed human beings to reach a superior status. As Germany fell, the atomic bomb spread throughout the crumbling ruins of the fading nation. Simultaneously, an underground society that practiced mind control discovered Futhark Five. This sect used the substance and its effects for experimentation, manipulation, and ultimately, for the total destruction of mankind.

Full short film after the break. You can purchase the dvd here.

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For those framiliar with the famous Strugatsky brothers, you'll know how big they are in Eastern Europe and how many films have been adapted from their work, specifically the likes of Tarkovsky's Stalker, Konstantin Lopushansky's Gadkie Lebedi, and most recently The Inhabited Island. Hard to be a God is one film which can't be found on IMDb, and while we reported on some stills earlier, we weren't able to find any footage. Now that's changed courtesy of a Russian tv station interviewing one of the main actors so we pulled out all the footage for your enjoyment.

On another planet, which goes through its middle ages, a group of historians from Earth live pretending to be average people. The main character, known as Don Rumata, is disgusted by cruelties he observes on everyday basis but is prohibited by his superiors from interfering and thus changing the natural course of history of the planet.

BERLIN -- The head of the Berlin International Film Festival refused to screen a Russian movie highlighting the threat posed by climate change despite a direct plea from former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

Dieter Kosslick declined to include Russian director Konstantin Lopushansky's "The Ugly Swans" (Gadkiye Lebedi) in the festival's official program even though Gorbachev offered to come to Berlin to personally present the film.

The film, based on a 1979 novel by Russian sci-fi writers Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, sets out an apocalyptic vision of a world where climate change has caused some people to mutate and children try to hold adults accountable for environmental destruction.

In a letter obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, the former Soviet leader who now heads Moscow's Gorbachev Foundation and is president of environmental group Green Cross International told Kosslick that the film focuses on "serious problems for our civilization" and questions of "the survival of mankind."

The architect of perestroika and the man credited with ending the Cold War, Gorbachev, writing in Russian, said: "Life shows that not all threats have disappeared from our lives. On the contrary, several of them have grown, and new ones have appeared. Humankind and people urgently need to understand these threats and find the strength and courage to counteract them.