Berlin - Tallinn

Escape from the Sun - Surviving the Tyrannies of Lenin, Hitler and Stalin, the book by the Australian documentary filmmaker Eugen Schlusser, is a search for clues that leads right across Europe and to Australia – as well as to Tallinn.

Every stone in Pädaste tells a story from long ago. The appearance of the village hearkens back to the nineteenth century when Baron Alexander von Buxhoeveden lived and worked here. But his idyllic life ended brutally when von Buxhoeveden was murdered while fleeing in Revolution-fraught February of 1919.

It is a mysterious region on Lake Peipus, at the outer border of the EU; a forgotten world in which time seems to have stopped. Will the Old Believers’ masses continue to be held much longer? The younger generation has been yearning to get away and the traditions are crumbling.

For twenty-eight years it separated Berlin, tore Germany apart and was a symbol of the Cold War. And it has been exactly twenty-eight years since it disappeared: the Berlin Wall. Now it has been gone for as long as it stood. 

The centenary of the October Revolution: The storming of the tsar’s palace resulted in great suffering, but also initiated progress that had an impact beyond national borders. Events will be held in many countries to celebrate this anniversary, but one chooses to ignore it: Estonia. 

Mit Dolores habt ihr nicht gerechnet (You Didn’t Expect Dolores) is anything but a feel-good play at the Gorki in Berlin. The issues are pretty intense.