Cinema
The Ideal Landscape
Ideaalmaastik
Peeter Simm · 1981
Synopsis
In the early fifties, the Young Communist League activist Mait Kukemeri arrives at the Metsa kolkhoz in the back of a travelling cinema's truck. As commissar for the spring sowing, he has to lead everyone out to the fields, even when water floods their boots and the machines get bogged down; seed is lacking and the town keeps multiplying its demands. The chairman, Harald Tuvike, drags his feet, and Kukemeri, for the first time, has to choose between what is right and what is expected of him.
Context
Based on a story by Karl Helemäe, the film was completed in 1980 and was released on 20 April 1981. The cinematography is by Arvo Iho, the sets by Priit Vaher and the music by Jaanus Nõgisto and Erkki-Sven Tüür. Its director, born three years after the period of the film, said he saw in it the memories and silences of those who had made it. Digitised by the National Archives and restored in 2025 by Locomotive Classics, it was shown at the Lumière festival in Lyon in October 2025.
Who it is for
An hour and a half in Estonian, viewable with English subtitles. It helps to know what the compulsory sowing campaigns imposed on collective farms in the post-war years were.
Prizes and reception
Prize for best first film and best actor at the all-Soviet festival in 1982, special prize at San Remo in 1983; often counted among the best Estonian films.