NEWS 8 Views of Lake Biwa

Ballads on the Lake

Marko Raat’s 8 Views of Lake Biwa was shot last summer near the Estonian-Russian border. The feature is described as a net of tragic love stories.

By EFI

The Estonian-Finnish co-production is led by Estonia’s film production company, Allfilm, partnering with Bufo from Finland. Animated segments will be handled in Hungary, making the project a first fully Finno-Ugric co-operation. The budget of the project is 1.3 million euros.

The film marks writer-director Marko Raat’s fiction feature return after a decade of documentaries at a variety of international film festivals, galleries and museums, including a short film at the Venice Biennale. Raat’s previous fiction work was Snow Queen, an Estonian-Norwegian co-production.

Allfilm’s Ivo Felt is delegate producer, with Dora Nedeczky also producing. Felt’s previous work include Zaza Urushadze’s Tangerines, nominated for the Academy Award and the Golden Globe, as well as Klaus Härö’s The Fencer, nominated for the Golden Globe. Recent release Truth and Justice broke all the box office records in Estonia, while Felt also worked as a local Service Producer for Christopher Nolan’s Tenet. Nedeczky has produced a number of acclaimed shorts with British auteur Peter Strickland, as well as a number of experimental features in her native Hungary.

Bufo’s Mark Lwoff and Misha Jaari are co-producers. Their latest productions include Aki Kaurismäki’s Berlinale Silver Bear Winner The Other Side of Hope, (co-produced with Sputnik). Bufo and Allfilm have most recently worked together on Saara Saarela’s dystopian drama Memory of Water, which was released in September 2022.

According to Marko Raat, Japanese culture as a whole exemplifies a certain type of organic and apolitical spirituality. “The Eight Views” is an Eastern artistic tradition that describes a place through eight poetic motives, such as evening glow, sails returning in the evening, autumn moon, temple bells, and wild geese departing. Lake Biwa in Japan, in particular, has inspired a long tradition of artists and authors interpreting these scenes. Through these views, we’re seeking the intersection of this animistic sense of nature and the islets of magical thought within eight intertwined tragic love stories set in the modern world. We aim to create expectations, deceive them, and distance the viewer from everyday realism,” says the director.

Centering on the magical realist, coming-of-age tale of teenage protagonist, Hanake, 8 Views features a blend of Estonian-Japanese culture and imagery. The story is wrapped in a net of tragic love stories in the community, and told through the prism of the “Eight Views” art tradition, illuminating how we have all lost touch with the soulfulness of the world. The film portrays these intertwined love

Tristan Czar Aasmäe Photo by

Marko Raat

The story is wrapped in a net of tragic love stories in the community, and told through the prism of the “Eight Views” art tradition, illuminating how we have all lost touch with the soulfulness of the world.

Elina Masing (above) and Tiina Tauraite

stories between the people of a single rural fishing village. Everybody knows everyone else, and each story’s protagonists are supporting characters in the other stories. All ballads are interrupted, only to continue in the next stories.

The majority of 8 Views’ filming took take place near Estonia’s Lake Peipus, on the Russian-Estonian border. In keeping with the story, loosely based on Max Dauthendey’s eponymous 1911 novel, shooting was within an Old Believers community - religious refugees who fled Russia in the 17th century. The film integrates a wide range of poetic, literary and liturgical references.

The main roles of the film are played by Elina Masing, Tiina Tauraite, Hendrik Toompere, Meelis Rämmeld, Simeoni Sundja, Jan Uuspõld and Tommi Korpela. The script is written by Marko Raat, the cinematographer is Sten Johan Lill, E.S.C, the production designer is Kristina Lõuk, and from Finland the sound designer is Karri Niinivaara, while the composer is Laura Hynninen.

The project was presented at the Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event co-production market in 2020 and at Marché du Film’s Co-Production Day in 2021. 8 Views of Lake Biwa is supported by Estonian Film Institute, Estonian Cultural Endowment, Tartu Film Fund and Finnish Film Foundation, and it’s being made in collaboration with Yle. The world premiere is planned for the year 2023. EF