I Was Here

Colour, 35 mm
Estonia, Finland, 2008, 89 min
WP – World premiere
Section: East of the West - Films in Competition

Synopsis

An adaptation of a book by Sass Henno, I Was Here. First Arrest (Mina olin siin. 1. esimene arrest, 2005), one of the most important Estonian works of literature of recent years. Seventeen-year-old Rass is growing up in an Estonian suburb. In the absence of a solid home life his family becomes a group of youngsters who are verging on being thieves. Drugs are an inseparable part of their lives, and when Rass agrees to distribute them, he gets tangled up in the narcotics trade. Small amounts suddenly become two-kilo packages that the mafia, to the misfortune of all involved, has not been paid for, and is ready to collect on by force… This story of one boy’s adolescence unwinds retrospectively over a sheet of paper on which Rass records his memories while in prison. The camera intermediates these recollections in a nervous journalistic stylisation, often even duplicating the images, which increases the pace of the story, a true-to-life basis for which can be easily imagined.

About the director

René Vilbre (b. 1970, Rakvere, Estonia) has been making films and working as a screenwriter and producer since 1993. In 1995 he began working successfully with Estonian television, where he became one of the leading directors. After several short films (such as Family Event / Perekondlik sündmus, 1998) he made his feature film debut with Mat the Cat (Röövlirahnu Martin). The modern fairytale about an unassertive boy from Tallinn looking for new friends after moving to the countryside was intended primarily for children’s audiences.