The Estonian Youth Film Series launches with a Midsummer celebration by the Isar – everyone is welcome!

Kristel Kaljund writes about organising the film festival and, more broadly, about being an ambassador for Estonian culture.

This year’s Estonian Youth Film Series in Munich (https://www.muenchenticket.de/event/wirklich-wahr-filme-aus-estland-36347/) and its opening celebration by the River Isar at Gasteig, featuring a performance by the German-Estonian musician Big Gabriel, mark the Munich Estonian community’s first attempt to rejuvenate the audience of the Estonian Film Series while continuing the long-standing tradition of Estonian cultural work in the diaspora.

The Estonian Youth Film Series takes place at Gasteig, Europe’s largest cultural centre, where our partner institution, the Munich City Library, is based. In selecting the films, we have considered both the cultural interests of the young Estonian diaspora in Europe and the extent to which the series demonstrates the connection between Estonian audiovisual art and the broader European cultural space. At the same time, we aim to showcase the high quality and distinctiveness of Estonian culture.

Estonian films and Estonian music are clearly underrepresented on Germany’s cultural landscape. Even less visible are young Estonian cinema and the work of young Estonian creatives abroad in film and music. This is precisely why the Estonian Film Series was established and, within it, the Estonian Youth Film Series – with the goal of bringing the young Estonian diaspora to the screenings, whether in person or through online channels, or at the very least introducing them via social media to themes expressed through film and music that resonate with young people across Europe.

This is no easy task, which is why we created the dedicated Estonian Youth Film Series in Munich and its opening celebration on 24 June at 7 p.m. at Gasteig/HP8, to which all young Estonians in Europe – and indeed all young friends of Estonia – are especially welcome.

There are two main events around which all our accompanying cultural outreach work aimed at strengthening the young diaspora community revolves. The first takes place on 24 June at Munich’s Gasteig/HP8 cultural centre, featuring screenings of:

• Oskar Stolovits’ short film Sechshundert warm / 600 Including Utilities (2024), with the director present for a Q&A session (https://www.imdb.com/de/title/tt37533276/?ref_=nm_ov_bio_lk), previously screened at the 2024 Hofer Filmtage festival;
• Indrek Spungin’s documentary A nagu armastus / A for Love (2023) https://www.efis.ee/film/21078;
• the short feature Surm on raskem kui murtud süda / Death Is Harder Than a Broken Heart (2025) https://www.efis.ee/film/21707;
• and Johannes Magnus Aule’s short feature Suur Zeus / Great Zeus (2025). 

The second key event will take place on 22 October 2026 at the same venue, featuring Meel Paliale’s feature film Pikad paberid / Long Papers (2024).

Gasteig is not only the largest cultural centre in southern Germany, but in all of Europe, and it also houses our cooperation partner, the Munich City Library. The technical support and additional promotion provided by the cultural centre are the result of the long-term cooperation built by Die Blaue Brücke e.V., alongside extensive volunteer-led cultural outreach and communications work by the association.

A little history. Estonian film days were held at Gasteig, Europe’s largest cultural centre, in cooperation with the city library over seven years under the curatorship of Karin Ladva-Zoller, representing the Munich chapter of the Estonian Academic Society in Germany. This was followed by Baltic Film Days over three years, first curated by Karin Ladva-Zoller and later by Kristel Kaljund and Anu Stolovits of Die Blaue Brücke e.V. (in 2021 and 2022).

After the pandemic, together with Sabine Hahn, Head of Communications at the Munich City Library, we had to acknowledge that the cinema landscape had changed considerably. As a result, together with Ave Serk from Die Blaue Brücke, we developed a new format: the Estonian Film Series. Since October 2023, it has featured four annual screenings of high-quality Estonian films, each accompanied by an introductory presentation at Gasteig/HP8, in cooperation with the Munich City Library and the Estonian Embassy in Berlin – always with the aim of introducing and promoting acclaimed Estonian audiovisual works and bringing together the Estonian diaspora community in Germany. The audience has included both Estonian cultural consumers living abroad and local Munich cinema-goers interested in Estonian film.

Becoming a partner of Gasteig / Munich City Library – Europe’s largest cultural centre – is no simple achievement, especially as a long-term partner. Yet this is the position we have managed to secure as organisers of the Estonian film series. We are deeply grateful for the trust of such an attractive cultural venue, which allows us to expand the reach of Estonian audiovisual art and now also increase its visibility among younger audiences with Estonian roots in Germany. Being represented on equal footing alongside, among others, Japanese cinema at such a high-profile level also strengthens the cultural identity of the wider Estonian diaspora. It is important for the Estonian diaspora as well that Estonian films remain part of the programme of Europe’s largest cultural centre. Winning such a position – becoming Gasteig’s permanent partner for Estonian audiovisual art – has required tremendous effort, and maintaining it while now using it as a new gathering point for young Estonians abroad is correspondingly valuable.

For us, every film evening in the series is more than just a screening. Each event begins with a presentation introducing the audiovisual work within the broader context of Estonian culture. My previous work preparing educational materials and presentations for the Artis cinema in Tallinn provided an excellent starting point for this approach. In a sense, the evenings conclude with written reflections on the Eesti Rada platform and further discussion on social media.

Finally, a few words about who “we” are. I myself left Estonia in 1995 for an internship in Copenhagen. Life and studies later brought me to Munich, though along the way I also studied in Helsinki and worked in Luxembourg. By now, I have completed doctoral studies in Germany and have two bilingual children whose hometown is Munich.

Somehow, not only my private life but also my professional life has become tied to an invisible cultural bridge: I work as a translator, which requires deep care for one’s mother tongue and close attention to language, and as a lecturer at TalTech, which means collaborating with Estonian colleagues and students and travelling frequently to Estonia. In addition, my favourite field is intercultural communication, which runs through everything I do.

Each of my fellow contributors on Estonia’s cultural front has their own story, though in broad outline they follow a similar pattern. What unites us is that we not only live bilingual lives between two cultures, but also genuinely want to serve as ambassadors of Estonian culture and devote a significant amount of our free time to this mission.

To support this cultural ambassadorial work, we founded the non-profit association Die Blaue Brücke e.V. in Munich. This small but effective organisation has now officially existed for three years. One of our principal projects is the Estonian Film Series and its newly launched daughter initiative, the Estonian Youth Film Series. Another important project is the online magazine for young Estonian creatives in Europe, NoorKunst.com, which we have now been publishing for three years.

In fact, our first experience of networking the diaspora came through a series of art workshops led by Kairi Uibo in 2024, when we also collaborated with the Estonian community in Rome. Until now, the film series had remained largely Munich-centred, whereas NoorKunst.com, first launched in 2024, has brought together young people of Estonian heritage from many different countries across the diaspora.

Once a year, we have also organised Estonian-language events for the community, either meetings with writers or concerts by Estonian performers. Considering how small our organisation is and how strongly volunteer-driven our activities remain, we feel we have already accomplished quite a great deal.