The "Singing revolution" film

March 02, 2007

I saw The Singing Revolution documentary last night. It is a film about Estonia from 1939 to 1991 by an American filmmaker Jim Tusty whose father was an Estonian emigree.

It was a great film, well produced and historically accurate. And I had several personal references there as well, as my former school was repeatedly shown there, Tiia Loitme spoke who among her other many roles was also my music teacher at that school, and the grandfather of a friend of a friend was interviewed there. I think many Estonians can identify similar direct connections there since it portrays historical events where most people in Estonia participated directly.

One of the interesting historical facts about our singing revolution that is also repeatedly reiterated in the film is that although the occupation years from 1940 to 1991 in Estonia were generally quite oppressive, during the “revolution” years from 1987 to 1991 nobody was killed for political reasons on either side and the whole affair was generally handled with calm and dignity. Perhaps this is something to learn from amid all this violence that we see in other parts of the world these days.

If you want to learn more about Estonia and the Estonians’ self-perception in a compact easy-to-digest format then this will surely be a great resource for this. It is currently not available for sale or downloading in any way, but the producer Jim Tusty was there at the screening and said they are currently working on a distribution plan. I’ll surely post a notice here when it will be available.