Rebel with a Bow Tie

A different history of the Cold War: how Estonians under Soviet tyranny began to feel the breeze of freedom when a group of anonymous dreamers successfully used improbable methods to capture the Finnish television signal, a window into Western popular culture, brave but harmless warriors who helped change the fate of an entire nation.

Stories about Tartu and Southern Estonia, capturing the tricks and mysteries about the arts of survival. Renowned filmmakers from Estonia and abroad bring us uniquely wild tales of people, communities, and the culture they live in. In these stories, we meet peculiar vehicles known as “karakat” from Peipsi, charming non-places of Tartu, the wild German woman living an off-grid life without water and electricity, mischievous goats and crazy village parties, the diverse Annelinn residents and nostalgic Petseri, slime mould and space exploration, and of course, the artists of survival from today and past.

Fred Jüssi has built his life at the crossroads between nature and culture. He is a true philosopher of the outdoors who has given deep consideration to the fundamental questions of being human. This film is about fruitful idling. A hymn for living slowly. As Fred Jüssi puts it: sometimes you just have to be sinfully slothful, and all by yourself.

As a student, the protagonist watches Emir Kusturica’s film “Black cat, white cat”, about the wacky life of the Balkans, and suddenly realizes that he has already seen all this in his childhood in Võrumaa.

This film is about the beauty of growing old. It is a story about an old and wise man who is preparing to leave this world and, thus, faces many personal and delicate questions. How not to loose faith in these final hours? Why are the greatest among us put through the hardest trials in the spiritual realm? Vello Salo is a Catholic cleric in his 90s, but first and foremost, a human being: a free spirit, a man with his own quirks and tricks, not to mention a lifetime of experience and wisdom which has been well-preserved to this modern day.