Sander Maran's outrageous film debut won the Audience Award and Best Estonian Genre Film Award at Haapsalu Horror and Fantasy Film Festival 2024.
For the first time ever, Tartuff will be screening a film that had it's World premiere at another PÖFF's satellite festival - Haapsalu Horror and Fantasy Film Festival (HÕFF) in 2024.
The screening in Tartu Town Hall Square on Monday 5 August is a rare opportunity to see this romantic horror musical before its official release in Estonian cinemas, which will occur in the end of 2024.
The international premiere of Chainsaws Were Singing takes place at the Fantasy Film Festival 2024. Even before the premiere, the film has already attracted international attention and has made it onto the lists of the most anticipated films in the sub-oceanic genre on film portals.
In this film, a pair of fresh-faced lovers find their lives turned upside down when a cruise ship full of crooks turns their lives upside down, setting off a madcap rollercoaster of adventures.
"Monty Python meets Texas Chainsaw Massacres meets... Les Misérables?" say the filmmakers themselves.
"The most outrageous film in the history of cinema this year, or perhaps ever," adds the HÕFF catalogue.
The lovers are played by Karl-Joosep Ilves and Laura Niils, with Martin Ruus as the snowmobile killer and Rita Rätsepp as his mother. The others are Janno Puusepp, Ra Ragnar and Henryk Johan Novod, Rasmus Merivoo and many other more or less well-known Estonian people. Koit Toome, one of the most beloved singer by the Estonian audience, has also contributed to the film.
Chainsaws Were Singing has an unusually long gestation period - ten years from the start of shooting to the screen on a minimal budget. The director, Sander Maran himself has described it as his passion project.