Amanda Pilke

In a multicultural suburb of Helsinki, a bullied Russian immigrant decides to fight back, a young woman dreams of superstardom at any cost, and a junkie couple schemes their way out of debt.

When their bootlegging father ends up in jail, four twenty-something brothers need money to pay his debts to local crooks. Next, their 9-year-old half-sister is dumped on their doorstep by her prostitute mother. A karaoke set helps reveal that the little girl is quite a singer, just as a talent contest for children is coming up on national television offering more than enough money to the winner.

Aliide experienced The Great Terror under Stalin’s regime, and decades after her hometown people were deported to Siberia, she lives alone in an isolated house. One night, she finds a young woman in her yard – Zara has just escaped from the claws of the Russian mafia that held her as a sex slave. Survivors both, Aliide and Zara engage in unearthing each other’s motives and gradually their stories merge into one, revealing the tragedy of a family during the cruelest years in Estonian history.

Two 18-year old girls from a christian fundamentalist community flee to a city for a summer job.

Like good soldiers in a war-zone, hospital staff are expected to respect the chain of command when dealing with life and death situations. But what happens when smug doctors, arrogant surgeons, and out-of-touch administrators make that easier said than done? Nurses deals with the professional and personal lives of four female colleagues who cope in different ways with the challenges of life on the trauma ward. With determination, strength, and a dark sense of humor, they achieve the demanding and inspiring task of saving lives in a system that sometimes seems designed to do the opposite.