Skip to main content

Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival · 2025

Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival 2025

First Feature Competition

Programme

14 films · 2 reviews

Jump to a film

Admission (Ru Xue Xu Ke)

When the truth about a couple instructing their son to cheat in his school admission interview is exposed, their partners in crime join them to uncover the traitor among them.

(Country: Taiwan; Year: 2025; Director: Quentin Hsu)

Backstage Madness (Shermendelik karnavaly)

A 70-year-young director still invents various vivid and bizarre characters on an old-fashioned typewriter.… He has heard the word ‘stop’ far too many times while preparing an art house festival gem.

(Country: Kyrgyzstan; Year: 2025; Director: Amanbek Azhymat)

Dump Of Untitled Pieces (İsimsiz Eserler Mezarlığı)

Satire about the absurdity of art.

(Country: Turkey; Year: 2025; Director: Melik Kuru; Writer: Melik Kuru)

Easy Girl

Two childhood friends reconnect in their twenties, gradually revealing deeper trauma.

(Country: Germany; Year: 2025; Director: Hille Norden; Writer: Hille Norden)

Elena's Shift

Elena, a Romanian single mother in Athens, dreams of a better future and becomes determined to seek justice after losing her job.

(Country: Greece; Year: 2025; Director: Stefanos Tsivopoulos)

Hercules Falling (Herkules Falder)

A battle-worn veteran wrestles with mental health challenges and strained family ties.

(Country: Denmark; Year: 2025; Director: Christian Bonke; Writer: Christian Holten Bonke, Marianne Lentz)

Interior

Psychological thriller about a burglar who uses a couch with a secret compartment to break into people’s homes and covertly film them.

(Country: Germany; Year: 2025; Director: Pascal Schuh)

Juana

A relentless investigator risks everything to uncover the truth behind a series of unsolved crimes against women.

(Country: Mexico; Year: 2025; Director: Daniel Giménez Cacho)

Lady

A narcissistic aristocrat hires a struggling filmmaker to record her every move.

(Country: UK; Year: 2025; Director: Samuel Abrahams; Writer: Samuel Abrahams, Miranda Campbell Bowling; Stars: Sian Clifford, Laurie Kynaston, Juliet Cowan)

My First Love (Min første kjærlighet)

A teenager who uses a wheelchair is forced into an institution, where she experiences her first love.

(Country: Norway; Year: 2025; Director: Mari Storstein)

On A String

Review preview for On A String

There is no grand adventure, no melodramatic pathos, no broad comedy, just life as an eternal struggle for survival and for the chance of thriving, but also with a sense of warmth.

Marko Stojiljkovic · 4 out of 5
Fresh out of Juilliard, a young violist returns home to live with her parents in the heart of New York City. Now it’s time to play gigs in the homes of strangers and make art with friends - nothing can go wrong, right?

(Country: US; Year: 2025; Director: Isabel Hagen; Writer: Isabel Hagen; Stars: Dylan Baker, Eric Bogosian, Frederick Weller, Charlotte Ray Rosenberg, Jamie Lee, Joy Suprano, Peter Reeves, DeLaney Harter Rosenthal, Renée Stork, Isabel Hagen, Jordan Galland, Haven Stashenko, John Kroner, Jon Lonoff, Ling Ling Huang)

Out of competition

A Safe Place (Un loc sigur)

Drama centring on a woman's unrest and desire.

(Country: Romania; Year: 2025; Director: Cecilia Stefanescu; Writer: Cecilia Stefanescu)

Sunday Ninth (Zondag de Negenste)

Review preview for Sunday Ninth

De Pauw is great as Horst, a frail, but still-threatening presence bursting with volatile, even violent energy.

Marko Stojiljkovic · 3.5 out of 5
An Alzheimer's sufferer is reunited with the brother he hasn't seen in 30 years.

(Country: Belgium; Year: 2025; Director: Kat Steppe; Writer: Kat Steppe; Stars: Josse De Pauw, Peter Van den Begin, Kristien De Proost, Frank Lammers,)

This Is Not Happening (To się nie dzieje)

Thriller surrounding a father's discovery that his son has shot a classmate.

(Country: Poland; Year: 2025; Director: Artur Wyrzykowski; Writer: Artur Wyrzykowski)