The Crow and Mice

On a summer break, Mia and her friends try a meditation app that’s somehow related to the operating system of the Tallinn Zoo, changing the body chemistry of its users into something between pollen and cosmic dust. Mia will need to choose between saving her friends or joining them.

Jan Uuspõld is a talented actor who is not up to scratch due to his problems with alcohol. He makes up his mind to stop taking clownish roles and accepts a serious part in a play at Vanemuise theatre instead. His journey from Tallinn to Tartu becomes an unusual and in a way exaggerated voyage depicting the life and mentality of contemporary Estonia through various human natures, attitudes and ways of thinking.

A student animated film by Mikk Rand

It's December and Christmastime, but outside the summer sun blazes. Something is wrong! The Mayan calendar predicts that the world will end on December 21, 2012. Every Estonian has to decide how they will spend their last days. Rait finally wants to confess his feelings to his lifelong love, the starlet Lenna Kuurmaa. His friend Mihkel, hits his head, goes bonkers, and needs to save the world by sacrificing that very same Lenna to the Sun Gods. Brenda wants to escape her dictatorial mother but insane asylum orderlies chase her. Ervin wins the world's last lottery and is so upset by not having any way to spend it that he wants to die from misery. Confusion reigns, but hope always dies last... And, fortunately, the end finally comes.

The film's narrative is based on a traditional Estonian fairytale, telling the story of a group of mosquitoes that challenge a horse to a contest of strength. As the film begins, it evokes an almost documentary sensibility, in part through its use of voice-over narration (in English). Though the film might at first seem to be a relatively traditional work, it is not long until this impression changes, and drastically. The character design and voice recording, along with fantastically unrestricted cinematography and editing, combine with folk songs (sung in Estonian, with English subtitles) that might be described as 'quirky' or maybe just 'really odd.' Some dialogue is presented in 'word bubbles' printed on the film as well. So much is going on, on so many levels, that the film defies its viewer to look away -- and who would want to? It's all wonderful. The Mosquito and the Horse clearly demonstrates how successful a film can be operating outside the classical Hollywood model.

In this film, skeptical city people from the information society who are surrounded by high technology meet mythological beings from the legends of their ancestors in intriguing and comical situations.