The Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF) has announced the lineups for its two documentary competitions, bringing together stories from around the world and new approaches to nonfiction cinema. The Doc@PÖFF International Competition will feature 11 world premieres, while the Baltic Competition will include five films making their world premieres. The festival has also unveiled its Special Screenings lineup.
Marianna Kaat, curator of the Doc@PÖFF International and Baltic Competitions, highlighted the selection’s search for new narrative approaches. She explained that this year she was particularly struck by the filmmakers’ ability to explore new possibilities for documentary cinema and its role in defending our sense of reality. The films, she noted, invite audiences to look more closely, question their assumptions and resist easy explanations in a world where so much information reaches us already interpreted.
The international competition brings together stories of self-discovery, family ties and the search for belonging. The selection ranges from camel racing on the Sinai Peninsula to an experiment in workplace democracy at a Michelin-starred restaurant. It also explores queer cultural memory and the mechanisms of control within a Danish Christian sect, alongside intimate portraits of people seeking freedom, rebuilding their lives and finding their own voices amid conflict, displacement and family expectations.
The Doc@PÖFF International Competition jury will be headed by Finnish director and screenwriter Karin Pennanen, whose documentary Days of Wonder premiered at the festival in 2025 and won the competition. She will be joined by Ukrainian filmmaker Roman Bondarchuk, artistic director of Docudays UA and co-founder of the Ukraine War Archive, and Mexican-Estonian sound designer and re-recording mixer Israel Bañuelos, founder of Acousmatic Film Sound, who has worked on more than 100 films screened at international festivals.
Meanwhile, the Doc@PÖFF Baltic Competition will return for its second edition with nine documentaries from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, five of which will receive their world premieres. The selection offers a journey through stories connected to ballet, life by the sea and the experiences of people pursuing their passions, discovering new possibilities or holding on to what matters most.
Fishermen, dancers and artists share the screen with people rebuilding their lives or defending their homeland. Spanning the Baltic region, Iceland and Ukraine, the films explore connections to nature, family and home, balancing moments of joy with difficult questions about the challenges of the present.
In addition to the two documentary competitions, PÖFF has announced its Special Screenings programme, adding to the lineup of a new edition of one of Northern Europe’s leading film festivals.
Doc@PÖFF Baltic Competition Lineup
Baltic UXO (Lithuania, Germany, Latvia) – dir. Alexander Belinski, Agnė Dovydaitytė – World Premiere
i want to be human (Lithuania) – dir. Rinaldas Tomaševičius – World Premiere
Ice, Men and a Starling (Estonia) – dir. Mihkel Oksmann – World Premiere
La Pietà (Iceland, Lithuania, Spain) – dir. Pepe Andreu, Rafa Molés
Living On (Lithuania) – dir. Nerijus Milerius
Memory from the Sea (Lithuania) – dir. Francesco Rufini – World Premiere
Riga my Love (Latvia) – dir. Karolina Peterson
The Perfect (Estonia) – dir. Laura Liventaal – World Premiere
To Die To Live (Ukraine, Latvia, Slovakia) – dir. Yuliia Hontaruk
The lineup, Special screeners:
A Photographer in Cannes (Estonia) – dir. Kullar Viimne – World Premiere
Dangerous Liaisons (United Kingdom) – dir. Stephen Frears
JJ: Every Inch a King (Estonia) – dir. Taavi Arus – World Premiere
Joy Will Prevail (USA) – dir. Max Korman – International Premiere
Red Snow (Finland, Estonia, Sweden) – dir. Ilja Rautsi
Slava: Shooting With Music (United Kingdom) – dir. Jacqui Morris, David Morris World Premiere
The Life and Deaths of Wilson Shedd (USA) – dir. Tim Blake Nelson