Filmmaker Statement

While spending the harshest period of the covid pandemic in Estonia, all I could think about was to make a film that did not feel confined. A film made of wide open spaces; a film that could breathe. That's why the location came before the story: it was the ghost town of Sirgala, the strangest place I have ever seen, that served as a motivator for the script. We had a crew that was tightly mixed between natives of the country and foreigners like me, and while the first provided the veracity we greatly needed, it was the latter that managed to look at Estonia with a sense of wonder. Filming was a bit like shooting in space. Curiously enough, only after the film was ready I realized it was the most personal piece I had ever done. People have different reactions to it. Some view it as pure satire. Others as a piece of pulp-magazine storytelling. Others, simply, as a love story. I'm fine with all interpretations. I always wanted it to be a genre-bender. Brace yourselves, comrades.