East of the West - Competition 2016 / Luuraja ja luuletaja / Estonia 2016
One evening, Gustav, a secret agent and hard-boiled loner, rescues a woman who turns out to be a decoy for Russian intelligence. The game of cat-and-mouse he decides to play gets considerably more complicated when he receives orders to succumb to her charms… An Estonian flick that impishly balances on the borderline between thriller and black comedy.
Gustav is an agent for the Estonian secret service who closely guards his solitary existence, but he’s also a former alcoholic and now sits in the local bar cradling a nonalcoholic beer. One evening he reluctantly makes the acquaintance of poet Miku and an enigmatic gypsy woman who, as Gustav discovers through Miku, turns out to be a decoy for Russian intelligence. Given the task of obtaining information on an opponent’s plans, Gustav is told to get close to the beautiful girl but the situation gets rather out of hand. This stylistically sophisticated black comedy thriller with its well-paced suspense is the second film from Toomas Hussar, whose debut Mushrooming (2012) also competed at Karlovy Vary in the East of the West Competiton. Here, too, we are immersed in a world of idiosyncratic heroes, although their past lives and motivations remain something of a mystery. In contrast, we are witnesses to their sudden, radical transformation in unforeseen circumstances, which serves as a sarcastic reflection on the confused identity of contemporary Estonia.
Kamila Dolotina
95 min / Color, DCP
World premiere
Director Toomas Hussar
/ Screenplay Toomas Hussar
/ Dir. of Photography Rein Kotov
/ Music Arian Levin
/ Editor Tambet Tasuja
/ Art Director Kristina Lõuk
/ Producer Ivo Felt
/ Production Allfilm
/ Cast Jan Uuspõld, Lana Vatsel, Rain Tolk
/ Contact Allfilm
www: http://allfilm.ee/work/a-poet-and-the-spy/
Toomas Hussar (b. 1962, Tallinn) is a screenwriter, director and actor whose adventurous nature is reflected in his myriad interests, his education and much else besides. In order to avoid conscription he began studying mathematics, then theology – a rare subject at the time – before ending up at acting school. Perestroika brought new priorities and Hussar moved into directing, initially shooting commercials and clips, and later award-winning stage plays and television series as well. The quirky poetic style of his film debut Mushrooming (Seenelkäik, 2012), about a politician and a rock star lost in a dense forest, won over audiences at Karlovy Vary, Mannheim and Toronto. The director’s playfully sophisticated weave of black comedy and thriller elements allows him to comment on both the fate of his heroes and, by extension, the fate of Estonia as a whole, a feat he also pulls off in The Spy and the Poet (2016).
Allfilm
Saue 11, 106 12, Tallinn
Estonia
Phone: +372 672 9070, +3 725 176 393
Fax: +372 672 907 1
E-mail: [email protected]
Toomas Hussar
Film Director
Ivo Felt
Producer, Service Company Rep.
Lana Vatsel
Actress
Tambet Tasuja
Film Editor
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