1944 (film)

1944

Film poster
Directed by Elmo Nüganen[1]
Produced by Maria Avdjushko
Ilkka Matila
Kristjan Rahu
Kristian Taska
Written by Leo Kunnas[2]
Starring Kaspar Velberg
Kristjan Üksküla
Maiken Schmidt
Music by Jaak Jürisson
Cinematography Maksim Osadchiy
Edited by Kimmo Taavila
Tambet Tasuja
Production
company
Distributed by Taska Film
MRP Matila Röhr Productions
Release dates
  • 8 February 2015 (2015-02-08) (Germany)
  • 20 February 2015 (2015-02-20) (Estonia)
  • 25 August 2015 (2015-08-25) (Finland)
Running time
100 minutes
Country Estonia
Finland
Language Estonian
Budget €1,500,000[3]
Box office unknown

1944 is a 2015 Estonian action war drama film directed by Elmo Nüganen. The film first premiered in February 2015 in Berlin, Germany before its release in Estonia [4] and other Northern European countries. It was selected as the Estonian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 88th Academy Awards but it was not nominated.[5]

The film is set in 1944, during the Battle of Tannenberg Line (25 July – 10 August 1944) until the Sõrve Peninsula Battle of Tehumardi (October – November 1944) and is shown through the eyes of Estonian soldiers who had to pick sides and thus fight against their fellow countrymen. Choices have to be made, not only by the soldiers, but also by their loved ones.

The film thus focuses on the individual in the context of the war rather than war itself, and shows the war from both perspectives - those of the Estonians in the Red Army and in the German Army.

Cast

Production

The first part of filming took place in October 2013 till the Easter break of 2014. It then continued at the start of the summer of 2014 where filming also took place at the Sinimäed Hills.[6]

The film was funded by the Estonian Film Institute, Ministry of Defence (Estonia), Cultural Endowment of Estonia and private investments.[7]

Reception

On British film aggregation website IMDb, 1944 has a weighted average score of 7.5/10, based on votes from 1,005 users. [8]

Box office

In Estonia 1944 was a huge box office success. With local opening weekend admissions at 19,030 1944 set a new opening weekend record for an Estonian film, beating the previous record of 15,611 admissions set by Names in Marble in 2002. [9] 1944's first week also broke records by achieving 44,879 admissions, the highest ever for an Estonian film that premiered in Estonia. [10]

See also

References

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Saturday, February 13, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.