NEWS The Speeping Beast

The Sleeping Beast is a new adventure film for the whole family.

Jaak Kilmi’s

The Sleeping Beast

to Hit Screens This Year

Jaak Kilmi’s new family adventure film, The Sleeping Beast, was shot in the summer and autumn of 2020. The 95 minute film is a co-production between Estonia and Latvia. The main producer is Evelin Penttilä of Stellar Film and the co-producers are Roberts Vinovskis and Dominiks Jarmakovičs of Studija Locomotive. The film has a total budget of € 915,000.

Based on children’s author Aidi Vallik’s screenplay, the film tells the story of a circle of kids and their summer. Ten-year-old Kristjan’s gang defies danger and breaks the rules to keep their secret playground in the ruins of an old factory complex. One day, the complex guard has an accident. When the kids decide that it’s in the group’s best interest to keep the man

Director Jaak Kilmi (in the middle) working on the set.

The events of O2 take place in 1939.

hostage, Kristjan finds himself in a tough confrontation with his best friends.

“I think The Sleeping Beast is about staying true to your conscience even in situations where others tell you to do something else,” producer Evelin Penttilä said. “This is an ethical conflict that we probably are all familiar with. As a producer, it’s been a while since I’ve been involved with all of the stages of a film, all the way from its development stages. So I feel proud to go into production on a film that carries a message so close to my heart. Together with our distributors from ACME Film, but both director Jaak Kilmi and I find it very important that children find the film, because the story is meant above all for them.”

The COVID-19 pandemic postponed the shooting period a little but it affected the pre-production period the most. With help from crisis support from the Estonian Ministry of Culture, the production crew were able to solve the practical problems affecting the shooting process caused by corona and the summer shooting period went off without a hitch.

The filmmakers had to search for children to play the leads twice – the first time was during the development and financing phase. But once the financing was in place, those kids had already grown up and they had to find new, younger actors to replace them. “We cast each character separately, keeping the group dynamic in mind the whole time in order to see how they worked together and what kind of synergy existed between them. And we have to be honest, we actually didn’t find the ideal group until last spring – the boy, Nils, who plays the lead, moved to Estonia from Germany with his family last year. When we met him, all the other characters also fell into place,” says the producer.

Evelin Penttilä is working on her second film with director Jaak Kilmi. “Our cooperation with Jaak has been very genuine and pleasant – I like his positive, life-affirming attitude as a director. I hope we have the opportunity to make more films together in the future.”

The Sleeping Beast was shot by DOP Elen Lotman, the production designer was Getter Vahar, and the film stars Nils Jaagup England, Rebeka Kask, Laura Vahtre, Kimi Reiko Pilipenko, Andres Lepik, Una Marta Soms and others.

The film was financed by the Estonian Film Institute, the Estonian Cultural Endowment, the Latvian Film Center and Creative Europe MEDIA. The local distributor is ACME Film and the premiere is planned for October 2021. EF