Of the 27 projects that were submitted to the Estonia 100 television drama series competition that was launched on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Republic of Estonia, 4 projects were selected yesterday that will receive a development grant of 5.000 euros. The deadline for the submission of the final scenarios of the selected drama series is 31 October 2016, The Estonian Film Institute reports.

The team behind the “1939” series project is the same as that of the successful film “1944” – writer Tiit Aleksejev is assisting producer Kristian Taska and director Elmo Nüganen. The series is a political spy thriller about the historical events in Estonia in 1939, where the secret services of Estonia, Russia and Germany will play for the highest stake, the statehood of Estonia. The jury found that “1939” provides a valuable historical lesson as well as an abundance of genre-wise thrill and obvious parallels to the current times in addition to the timeless topic.

Bringing us from the past into the future is the project “Dharmahäkker”, which speaks about people’s identity problems and cyber-Estonia in 2035, when all of a sudden, an Estonian director of a big global company goes missing. The search will lead us through the vision of a future Estonia and its habitants. There are many known players of the cultural scene behind the project, including Peeter Jalakas, Peeter Laurits, Taavi Eelmaa and Tarmo Jüristo. The producers are Allfilm and Von Krahl Theatre. The jury appreciated the bold vision and the original approach of “Dharmahäkker”.

Jüristo is also a party in another selected project entitled “Hansapank”, which speaks about the transitional period in the fresh Republic of Estonia in the 1990s, and the rise and fall of the newly established Hansapank. Against the backdrop of the historical events of that time, a human drama unfolds, where the characters have to constantly re-evaluate the currencies as well as their personal values. The author of the project is Eero Epner and the producers include Kopli Kinokompanii and Theatre NO99. According to the jury, “Hansapank” provides a valuable lesson from our recent history in a fascinating and exciting form.

The fourth project that received the grant is “Arabella”, which is well known to most Estonians. Similar to the film made by Peeter Simm in 1983, the series is based on a popular children’s book by Aino Pervik, but many story lines have been modernized. The jury found that “Arabella” is also relevant today, and the revitalisation allows people to consider the permanent values of life through this story, by providing entertainment as well as a moral. The creator of the project of Kopli Kinokompanii is Lauri Lippmaa.

In a tight competition, many projects remained outside the top four by only one or two points.

“It was an exceptionally interesting competition – television series are popular among the production teams and the concept is well known to them. We would like to commend the participants of the competition because the stories were of a high standard – they were original and well written. There were more young and new participants than expected and the ideas had a fresh feel to them. Another thing that also came through was that the participants had done a great deal of work – the projects were written down in great detail. The competition was very close between the top 16 projects. This in turn provides a good basis for the fact that the production of quality television series also has to be supported in the future,” commented Edith Sepp, the head of the jury.

The jury comprised of Margus Kasterpalu (Steering Group of the Republic of Estonia 100), Edith Sepp (CEO of the Estonian Film Institute), Mart Normet (head of entertainment programmes at ERR), Toomas Luhats (procurement manager of Elion) and Tristan Priimägi (film critic of Sirp).

After submitting the final scenarios on 31 October 2016, one television drama series will be selected from the four development projects that will be presented for production and screened within the framework of the Republic of Estonia 100 program.