PÖFF director Tiina Lokk said this year is a strong film year and there are more than enough good films, which is why putting together the program has been a real pleasure, but also a serious challenge.

"We are very proud of the surprising, eye-opening and moving films we are presenting on our 25th birthday year," she said.

The festival will premier Hungarian director György Palf's new film "Forever in Eternity" ("Mindörökke"), an allegorical drama about Hungary, which has become a post-apocalyptic, militarized zone with a strange love triangle.

Kazakh director Adilhan Yerjanov's "Herd Immunity" is an absurd comedy about a corrupt village policeman who gets into trouble when a high control commission arrives due to the coronavirus. Jerjanov's films have been screened at many festivals, including Cannes, Venice and Toronto. Last year's film "Ulbolsõn - Alone Against All" won the NETPAC award at the PÖFF Asian Film Promotion Network.

Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian film is represented by the fairy-tale drama "Songs for Foxes" ("Dainos lapei"), co-produced by the three countries and directed by Kristijonas Vildžiunas. Also in the new work of the author of the films "You Are Me" and "Seneca Day", which is known to this viewer and is based on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, a rock musician grieving loves himself separates into a lonely country house. The co-producer of the film is Eesti Joonisfilm.

"Waiting" is a psychological drama by Finnish director Aku Louhimiehe about a woman who has to decide between her mind and feelings when her husband comes to visit an old friend. The modern version of Juhani Aho's 130-year-old novel "Teacher's Lady" takes place on an idyllic island in the Turku archipelago, which has not yet been ravaged by a corona pandemic. The 53-year-old Louhimiehe's previous film "Unknown Soldier" attracted more than a million viewers in Finland.

Jun Robles Lana, a Filipino who won the Best Director award in Tallinn two years ago, is back at PÖFF with her new social drama-comedy "Last Night", in which the life of a well-behaved gay beauty salon owner's life turns upside down when he suddenly finds himself on the list of drug addicts monitored by the police. To wash his name clean, he undertakes an odyssey that turns out to be both frustrating and comical.

In Iran's Abed Abest's eloquent film "Killing the Eunuch Khan" ("Koshtan-e Khajeh"), a bomb falls on a house where a father lives with two daughters. This triggers a chain of events where some victims start killing other victims, covering all the streets with blood. The visual symphony on violence is inspired by the endless conflicts in the Middle East.

The winner of the main competition program will receive a prize of 20,000 euros, which will be displayed by the city of Tallinn. The Dark Nights Film Festival will take place this year from November 12 to 28.

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