In 1912, the first Estonian filmmaker, Johannes Pääsuke, was commissioned to capture life and people in a far corner of Estonian countryside: Setomaa. He returned with more than 1300 photos, but only 7 minutes of film footage. What happened to the rest of it? Our comedy tries to propose a version. Johannes Pääsuke and his assistant Harri Volter, a Baltic German medical student, played by prominent Estonian comedians Ott Sepp and Märt Avandi, travel by train and on horse carriage from Tartu to Petseri and Värska and end up in most surreal adventures leading them to one conclusion: a man has to do what a man has to do. A year later, in 1913, Johannes Pääsuke filmed the very first Estonian feature film: Bear Hunt in the Pärnu County.

Johannes Pääsukese tõeline elu

A man falls off a roof. Another one drowns. Another catches fire. Wherever you look, men are dropping like flies. “May God rest their souls,” sigh the widows as they cross themselves somberly. This is the life and the death of the men in Virago—a village where for centuries no man has lived long enough to see his fortieth birthday. Until today.