A sunny day in the winter forest. Piglet dashes across the frozen brooks and lakes on ice skates. Piglet’s friend the cow also attempts a few pirouettes. When a big fish with spiky teeth knocks against the ice, the two run away in fright and lose a skate in the process. They finally gather the courage to go back and realise that the creature in the lake has only peaceful intentions.

A tired sun creeps across the horizon for the last time. A cold wind is already blowing over the lake. The migrant birds depart for warmer climes and leave the Nordic natural paradise. Heavy snow showers cover the land with a white coat. The animals condemned to stay – fragile creatures of delicate porcelain – cling to branches, looking for shelter. None of them will escape the frosty grip of the spreading winter. They are observed by a tiny girl, also made of wafer-thin, translucent white ceramics, who is the only one left in the freezing landscape in the end.
Anu-Laura Tuttelberg’s symbolic story is touchingly beautiful and at the same time full of inspiring irritations, because she makes her art run up against the reality of nature. She did not animate her puppets in a warm studio but exposed them to the elements, on location in northern Estonia and an island in the Norwegian Sea. In her film, cruel forces, disturbing fragility and the renewing force of the cold meet – ambivalently and elegantly.

Romanas, his parents Aivaras and Diana and their little dog live in a cramped place in the Lithuanian harbour town of Klaipėda. Linas Mikuta takes an unprejudiced look at a loving family structure where dreams are interpreted, worries are shared and news negotiated over cigarettes and cake, while at the same time the narrative of a timeless childhood summer full of headstands by the side of the road, somersaults on the beach and afternoons in box houses unfolds.

With his friends Romanas roams through ruins, neighbourhoods and along the coast. The eight-year-old conquers his own worlds, lives in his own time. The result is a portrait of a wealth of relationships and resilience at a precarious place that’s completely of the moment. Everyday rituals, care and community are captured in humorous, warm tableaus and light-drenched exterior shots. This film knows about the great love in small things. It knows about pop songs that hit you right in the heart, about tears you are not left alone with, and that playing with the waves between the green sea and the white sand means all the world.

On 23 August 1989, the people in the Baltic states demonstrated their solidarity against the Soviet occupation and took to the streets for their sovereignty. They formed an over 600-kilometres-long human chain stretching through Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Touching images of a one-of-a-kind event, captured in a lyrical composition.