Tuumalu said that talking about Estonian film and cinema in the 1990s, there is no overlooking Mati Parkja, known also as Kino-Mati. "Kino-Mati was a legendary traveling cinema mechanic. He sold five million tickets in his lifetime for 12,100 screenings. It was Mati who best summed up cinema in 1990s Estonia for me, saying it was a very shitty time," the critic recalled.

Tuumalu joined Parkja on a tour of Valga County in 1996. "It was one of his last tours. He showed his pictures in kindergartens and schools, but also at special cinema spots. Screenings at such locations tended to be said affairs. Mati's dedication was fantastic, but there were no more viewers as people had run out of money. He was up against an era that did not really have a place for cinema," Tuumalu said.

The expert said that while Estonia had over 600 places where people could catch a movie in 1990, this had fallen to 74 by 1999. "In the same time period, the number of people catching a movie fell from 12 million to 800,000. This means that while a single person on average caught 12 movies in 1990, by 1999, this had dropped to 0.6. It was a complete disaster and fall from grace."

Another reason why people went to the cinema less often was the scarcity of full-length Estonian features. "We got one full-length movie in 1995, none in 1996 and another one in 1997. It is clear that there could not have been a deluge of moviegoers in such a situation. People usually want Hollywood movies or local productions," Tuumalu said, adding that no other field of culture took a beating as bad as cinema in the 90s.

Money for filmmaking that had come from Moscow during Soviet times disappeared when Estonia regained its independence. "Tallinnfilm was directly subsidized from Moscow, and it was a sprawling production complex. Everything was produced under Tallinnfilm, it employed hundreds of people, as it takes more than a director, screenwriter and producer to make a movie. They produced chronicles, documentaries, puppet films and animations. Once the system collapsed and funding from Moscow disappeared, the fledgling Estonian state did not rush to take over, with Estonian cinema left to its own devices," Tuumalu noted.

"There's an apt saying according to which the Estonian state only communicated with movie theaters via the tax authority. Movie theaters were struggling, ended up privatized, with the buildings sold and turned into casinos, nightclubs or what have you. No one thought about technical modernization. The result, as put by Kino-Mati, was that it was a very shitty time for filmmakers and probably cinemas as well," Tuumalu said.

But the network of cinemas collapsing did not mean Estonians were cut off from screen productions. "It was a time of great opening. We got satellite television, video stores – there were so many of them, come to think of it – and official Hollywood pictures, which the few remaining cinemas started to show. In the late 1990s, there were just three movie theaters in Tallinn – Kosmos, Sõprus and Kinomaja. People went to see Hollywood movies, because there simply weren't any domestic ones."

Tuumalu said that while film funding never disappeared completely, it was a question of how much was available. "The middle of the 1990s was a very poor time, while some managed to secure funding even then. And we cannot say that no good pictures were made in that time," the critic emphasized, giving the examples of "In Paradisium," "Need vanad armastuskirjad," "Kapsapea," Minu Leninid" and "Georgica."

According to Tuumalu, Estonian cinema hit rock bottom in the 1990s. "You need to hit bottom before you can rise again," he believes. "We came out of it, and where we have come to, with its roots in the 1990s, if only in terms of cinema education, is clearly visible today. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger," he said.

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