Ulfsak

By EFI Photo by Virge Viertek

What is your your background and previous work experience?

I graduated from the University of Tartu, majoring in Journalism and Communications. Already during university, I was invited to work as a culture journalist in a large national newspaper, and that’s where I first started writing about movies. I soon felt that I wanted to continue my studies, so I did my Master’s degree in Film and TV Studies at the University of Warwick in UK.

I actually worked as a film journalist in the same newspaper for a total of 19 years, with breaks for studies and two maternity leaves. For the last eight years I have also been the programmer for the Baltic Event Works in Progress for the PÖFF Industry side. My job was to find projects from the Baltic States and Finland for our showcase that would be interesting for international film professionals visiting the Industry events here in Tallinn. And for more than ten years I have also been the editor of this very magazine. So basically almost everything I have done in my professional life has somehow been related to film.

But why did you want to work more specifically with film, and not, for example, visual arts?

To be honest, visual arts would have been option B for me. But maybe cinema is something that runs somehow organically in my blood. My father was a film actor. When I was little, I used to hang out with him on the sets or in the sound recording studios. We also had a shelf in the hall at home, where my father kept film scripts that were sent to him to read, and his theatre play scripts. And as I was a lonely and an extremely bored little human being, I secretly snatched them from the shelf and read them. So I have the habit of reading scripts and plays, and the interest in watching and analyzing films and maybe arts in general, that somehow probably came with me from childhood.

How would you assess the current state of Estonian film industry?

We lack only one thing - additional financial resources for cash rebate, film production, and for the quick completion of the long awaited studio complex. We have plenty of talent and good filmmakers - both directors and from the techni- cal side, and that’s the most important thing. It is also good that the market share of Estonian films is about 20% of the domestic film market and that we are able produce very diverse things - the level of documentaries is high, and there are also a lot of exciting things going on in our animation.

I personally am also very much looking forward to the some of the upcoming features, because there are many exciting projects in the production and postproduction at the moment.

What are your plans and goals in your new position?

Since the world and also the film industry have had to live through so much turbulence in recent years, I am not planning any revolutionary steps right away. My predecessor, Piret TibboHudgins, has done an excellent job, and my task is to try to maintain the same level of professionalism, openness and kindness.

One of the goals is definitely, in addition to the Estonian films that work very well on the local market, to gain more momentum for our features that would also fly high internationally. EF