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Estonian epic Truth And Justice is Tanel Toom’s debut feature and was recently shortlisted for the International Feature Oscar. Based on a classic local novel, it’s been a smash hit at home where it was released in the spring, selling 267K tickets in a country of just 1.3M people — and topping Avatar to become Estonia’s most successful film of all time. When the shortlist came out, the surprise inclusion was snapped up by sales outfit Films Boutique. This isn’t Toom’s first brush with Oscar — his 2010 The Confession won a Student Academy Award and was later nominated as Best Live Action Short. But, he allows, the stakes are higher now.

The film is a historical drama that follows an Estonian farmer in 1870 who struggles against a rival neighbor as well as his own family and beliefs. It’s an adaptation of Anton Hansen Tammsaare’s eponymous pentalogy novel,...

Estonia’s film industry was provided a major boost in 2019 when Christopher Nolan’s big budget thriller Tenet opted to shoot in the former Soviet Union territory, injecting capital and prominence into the local film scene.

Allfilm, one of the country’s most successful and prolific producers, provided production services for the Nolan pic, and was given a further end-of-year boost when its feature Truth And Justice was a surprise inclusion on the International Oscar shortlist.

The company, run by producer Ivo Felt, was founded in 1995, only four years after Estonia became independent, and three years before the establishment of its national film body. Based in the capital Tallinn, where some 400,000 of the country’s 1.3 million population live, across 25 years Allfilm has produced a steady output of small budget features, patching together finance from local and international sources.

The outfit is probably best known for producing Estonia-Georgia co-production Tangerines, which...

Already a record-breaking box office blockbuster domestically, Estonia's official submission in the best international feature film Oscar race jumped onto the Academy shortlist earlier this week, only the second time in history that a film from this small Baltic nation has made the grade. Based on Anton Hansen Tammsaare's early 20th century novel, a pan-generational saga familiar to every Estonian schoolchild, Truth and Justice is deluxe period soap opera at heart. But young writer-director Tanel Toom's handsome adaptation is also finely crafted and superbly acted, a fatalistic meditation on the human condition splashed across a broad historical canvas....

Already a record-breaking box-office blockbuster domestically, Estonia's official Oscar submission in the best international feature contest jumped onto the Academy shortlist earlier this week, only the second time in history that a film from this small Baltic nation has made the grade. Based on Anton Hansen Tammsaare's early 20th century novel, a pan-generational saga familiar to every Estonian schoolchild, Truth and Justice is deluxe period soap opera at heart. But young writer-director Tanel Toom's handsome adaptation is also finely crafted and superbly acted, a fatalistic meditation on the human condition splashed across a broad historical canvas.

Truth and ...

Estonian drama broke all domestic box records.

Berlin-based Films Boutique has picked up international rights to Tanel Toom’s Truth And Justice, which has been shortlisted for the international feature film Oscar.

The Estonian drama broke all box records when it was released domestically in February, generating more than 267,000 admissions and beating previous record-holder Avatar, which had 194,000.

Following its international premiere in Busan in October, Truth and Justice screened at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival last month and has been selected for Palm Springs in January.

The deal for international rights was negotiated by producer Ivo Felt and Films Boutique COO Gabor Grenier.

Exclusive: Truth And Justice, the Estonian debut feature that was one of the more unexpected inclusions on the Academy’s International Feature Film Oscar shortlist earlier this week, has been snapped up by Berlin-based sales agent Films Boutique.

The film is a historical epic running at 149 mins that follows an Estonian farmer in 1870 who struggles against a rival neighbor as well as his own family and beliefs. It is an adaptation of author Anton Hansen Tammsaare’s pentalogy novel of the same name, written 1926 – 1933, which is considered to be one of the fundamental works of Estonian literature.

Writer-director Tanel Toom made his feature debut on the film, he was previously Oscar nominated for his 2010 short The Confession.

Ivo Felt at Tallinn-based Allfilm produced, his company is one of the country’s most successful production houses with credits including the Oscar-nominated Tangerines and the Golden Globe-nominated The Fencer, which also made...

The intimidating task of adapting and directing Estonia’s landmark novel of the 20th century doesn’t appear to have fazed Tanel Toom in his feature debut “Truth and Justice,” nor has it challenged him to deliver anything but a respectful, well-made literary adaptation. Given that the film was one of six projects chosen by Estonia’s government-backed film-funding body for their celebration of the nation’s centennial, it’s unsurprising this rural epic, based on Anton Hansen Tammsaare’s eponymous five-part classic, hones closely to standard formulas, presenting archetypal characters formed in equal parts by their environment and their epoch. Box office records were broken at home following a late February opening, and while the film’s selection to represent Estonia at the Academy Awards was a no-brainer, its crossover chances on international screens will be limited at best.

Broken down to its essentials, “Truth and Justice” is the multi-decade...

Adaptation of classic Estonian novel beat the previous box office record set by ‘Avatar’ and has been submitted for the Academy Award.

Tanel Toom is the filmmaker behind a genuine phenomenon in the history of Estonian cinema.

His feature directorial debut, Truth And Justice, broke all box records when it was released domestically this spring, recording more than 267,000 admissions and beating previous record-holder Avatar, which had 194,000 admissions. For a country with a population of just 1.3 million, it represents a huge homegrown hit.

Based on a 1926 novel by Anton Hansen Tammsaare, the film centres on a feud between two farmers in...

Estonia’s Oscar® 2019 Entry for Best International Feature ‘Truth and Justice’ A saga of a family settling the wilderness in Estonia in from 1870 to the 1890s. Satisfying in its complexity, the hero, Andres and his young wife struggle to tame the swamp and create a farm which their offspring will inherit. Their love and his upright honesty are tested as his crooked neighbor causes constant court fights, they work ceaselessly and the children his wife Kroot bears are all girls.

When Kroot finally gives birth to a male heir, and loses her life in the process, Andres becomes staunchly entrenched in fighting for was he considers truth and justice. While originally wanting to defend what he considers right, he eventually loses his vision of right and wrong, and manages to cheat his neighbor who has become his archenemy. Justice comes to mean rights of ownership and stewardship over his land.