Midsummer Day

Daring, honest, and provocative, Sööt’s camera produces an exposé of a traditional midsummer night’s celebration held in an urban setting during the Brezhnev era, when drinking had become a problematic social issue. Songs from pagan romantic rituals are almost the only link between the old traditions and contemporary reality. The film depicts the new rituals of the celebration while also questioning the state of Estonian society at a time when tall prefab apartment buildings, inhabited by people from all over the Soviet Union, were a mark of Soviet Estonia. (Karlovy Vary International Film Festival)