Rooftop Cinema to Close for Good
Katusekino, the rooftop cinema at a downtown Tallinn shopping mall, will not be returning for a sixth season, it was announced last week.
Aivar Laan, the creative agency director who led the project, detailed the reasons on Postimees online site, saying that returns on keeping an open-air cinema in operation at nearly 60 degrees latitude had proved thin.
He also criticized city authorities and the Cultural Endowment of Estonia for what he called a lack of desire to support the cinema.
"Is a Japanese animation festival at Artis cinema, which survives mainly on state subsidies more important than a Katusekino program of film-maker debuts that are in the vanguard of world cinema? Is a Coen brothers retrospective at Katusekino somehow less weighty than a Cultural Endowment-supported Wes Anderson film week?"
"But we're tired of battling the changeable weather. One month of warm summer weather doesn't make up for two to three months of 'poor skiing weather,' " Laan said.