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AUTUMN BALL
Six Strangers Cope in post-Soviet Estonia
by ERIN ANADKAT, Contributing Writer
 Estonian filmmaker, Veiko Ounpuu,
does not necessarily characterize
his ensemble film AUTUMN BALL
as bleak and unnatural. It depicts
interwoven stories of six strangers
and their daily lives in the landscape
of the Baltic region after the collapse
of post-Soviet Russia.
He comments on the meaning in front
of the lens. "I would like to think the
landscapes in my film are more "existential"
than "social," but of course
there are some references to the social
context as well."
The real-life buildings in the scenes were initially
built to accommodate Soviet workers imported from
Russia for the growing industry in 1970's Tallinn, a
city in Estonia.
"But I chose the area not for all this but simply
because the architecture allowed me to construct this
almost abstract urban space against what the individual
solitude of the characters can shine, explains
Ounpuu. He has received criticism for the visuals, but
defends himself, "I don't think the criticism is justified
as the film is a work of art, not a documentary. It
still feels maybe the inhabitants of the area deserve
another movie as well-a movie that would show their
everyday struggle from a more optimistic angle. I'm
not the one to make this movie though," said Ounpuu.
Ounpuu held various occupations before ending up in
filmmaking, including that of a salesman of floor materials,
repairman of car tires, a night clerk in a hotel
on Phuket Island in Thailand, and an account executive
in a small ad agency.
After directing ads for a friend's production company,
Ounpuu forayed into filmmaking with a 40-
minute short film, Empty, winning prizes in Estonia.
Also based on an adaptation of a work by Estonian
writer Mati Unt, Oupuu related closely with the
mood of Unt's novel Autumn Ball as "dark and
existential gloom, mixed [with] almost Beckett-like irony and wit," he said.
Ounpuu's currently writing a script for a new project
he has plans to shoot in April 2008, the The Temptations
of St. Tony, about a man choosing between a
career and a soul.
AUTUMN BALL was the first Estonian film to
screen at the Venice International Film Festival and
also played at the Warsaw and Thessaloniki International
Film Festival, and here at AFI FEST 2007.
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