>>> SWAMP (Estonia)
“Swamp” is a drama about love, passion, hate and the choices a person has to make. It is also about the hidden forces within that direct those choices. Beneath the surface lies a lingering question: how well do we really know ourselves and are we able to direct our lives?
Manuel, a photographer for a news agency in a modern metropolitan, and his wife Izabel, a wealthy businesswomen, come to visit Izabel’s business partner Juku and his ex-model wife Liis in Estonia .
On the edge of a mysterious swamp that lies on the borderline of Estonia and Russia Juku and Liis have opened a luxurious hotel in an old manor house.
Now preparations are being made for the opening of the restaurant. Juku’s business idea has been the untouched nature and luxurious service that have found investors and hopefully will allure numerous clients as well.
On the background of the problems and relations of two married couples in their early middle-age a much more dramatic story develops, which is launched when Manuel gets lost in the swamp and meets a local girl called Wildcat and her admirer Marek, a smuggler.
In the mystical northern swamp develops a passionate love story between Manuel and the nature’s child Wildcat alongside a nerve-wracking contradiction with violent and dangerous Marek.
In the middle of the mess of the preparations for the opening of the restaurant, the noise of the festivities in the manor house, Liis’, Juku’s and Izabel’s problems, complexes and intrigues, Manuel has to reach a decision. Does he help his loved-one or will he remain a bystander and a loser as he has been his whole life? The brutal violence of Marek towards Wildcat and himself in a situation where there is no-one to turn to for help forces Manuel for the first time in his life to make a fatal decision.
He goes into battle to destroy a brutal enemy and help his loved-one. Manuel knows, that smugglers orientate in the night’s swamp by the beacon. He allures his victim with the false beacon into bottomless bog pools. The next morning when everybody is waking up after the opening party of the restaurant it appears that Manuel’s plan has turned against him.
Renita Lintrop
Scriptwriter and director, founder of the independent film company SEE, working together with her husband Hannes Lintrop.
Since September 2007 she is the Associate Professor at the Tallinn University Baltic Film and Media School.
Her films received many awards at international festivals, including:
"Cogito, Ergo Sum"- 1st Prize for a Short Film at the Aurillac International Film Festival'90 (France), Best Documentary of the Year'90 (Estonia)
"To Shura" - Jury Award at the Pärnu International Antropological Film Festival'90 (Estonia), Best Documentary at the Tampere International Film Festival'91 (Finland), Audience Award for the Best Short Film at the Creteil
International Film Festival'91 (France), Bronze Dragon at the Krakow
International Film Festival'91 (Poland), Special Commendation at the Melbourne International Film Festival'91 (Australia), Estonian Republic' Cultural Yearprize'91(Estonia)
"Too Tired To Hate" Film Prize of the Estonian Cultural Endowment'95 (Estonia), 1st Prize for a Fiction Film at the Salerno
International Film Festival'96 (Italy), Jury Special at the Alexandria
International Film Festival'96 (Egypt), Jury Special at "Kinoforum" 97 (Russia)
