Film by Katrin Maimik and Andres Maimik …but how will you remember me? CHERRY TOBACCO PRESSKIT 1 Cherry Tobacco Cast: Maris Nõlvak, Gert Raudsep, Getter Meresmaa, Anne Reemann, Maarja Jakobson, Viiu Maimik, Aap Salumets, Tiina Kadarpik, Andres Kütt et al. Scriptwriters and directors: Andres Maimik and Katrin Maimik Cinematographer: Mihkel Soe Art Director: Kristiina Ago Composer: Sten Sheripov Editors: Marta Pulk and Andres Maimik Producer: Anneli Lepp A Kuukulgur Film production CHERRY TOBACCO PRESSKIT 2 One-liner Love can strike you like a bolt from the blue – when you’re least prepared for it. CHERRY TOBACCO PRESSKIT 3 Synopsis Cherry Tobacco is about a small-town girl, Laura, who is constantly bored. Her mother gets on her nerves, boys her age are stupid and everything anyone wants to do seems childish. One day Laura’s energetic friend Merit invites her on a hike to a bog led by a middle-aged nature-lover called Joosep. The beginning of the trip is anything but promising: the relation- ship between the reserved girl and the outgoing Joosep, who tries to impress the hiking party with his hillbilly style and bizarre rituals, becomes tense. But much to her own surprise, Laura discovers that as the hike continues she is enchanted by the rugged charms of Joosep. The quest is coming to its irrefutable end and Laura has to decide whether a relationship with an older man is a mere step along the winding road towards becoming a woman or whether it is her very first love. Cherry Tobacco is a youthful relationship drama about falling in love for the first time. For psychological reasons and because of societal norms, making decisions becomes much more difficult – especially if the feelings that are awakening are directed towards an older man. Forbidden love is a lot like war – there are no right choices. CHERRY TOBACCO PRESSKIT 4 Director’s statement God is in the detail With your first love everything is so total – you lack any experience to compare it to or through which to make sense of it. Life experience gives you the ability to cope with your feelings, interpret people better and know where something is likely to lead. But the decisions you make when you first fall in love are made blind. This is where the strange behaviour of those enamoured for the first time comes from – their anxieties, their fixations, their constant denial and the transformation of their existence into a textbook melodrama. “Is he really the one?” “Will it break my heart if I turn him down or will it break my heart if I go for it with him?” When the object of your affection turns out to be a much older, married man, making choices is much harder, both psychologically and from the point of view of social norms. Forbidden love is a lot like war – there are no right choices. Cherry Tobacco is not so much about physical love as closeness, longing for closeness and searching for closeness. At the same time, it is the ontology of privation. The nature of love is thrown into its sharpest relief when you are separated from the person you yearn to be with. Roland Barthes wrote in his work The Discourse of Love how true love stems from privation, painfully surviving the most extreme feelings that come with it – desperation, fear, longing – through which you have to decipher for yourself what love really is. Longing forces you to idealise the object of your affection in your imagination. The film pays attention to the little details that falling in love and being in love involve – all of the smells and tastes and sounds, everything you consume – to which the infatuated can attach even fetishistic meaning. Indian author Arundhati Roy wrote in her novel The God of Small Things: “And the air was full of Thoughts and Things to Say. But at times like these, only the Small Things are ever said. Big Things lurk unsaid inside.” CHERRY TOBACCO PRESSKIT 5 Directors: Katrin Maimik (1982) A director and screenwriter, Katrin received a bachelor’s degree in dramatic theory from the University of Tartu in 2005 and an MA in scriptwriting from Tallinn University’s Baltic Film and Media School in 2013. Filmography: Cherry Tobacco (full-length feature film, 2014), The Photo (short, 2013), Silver Wedding (short, 2013), Old Fish (documentary, 2010). Andres Maimik (1970) Andres studied at Tartu Art College and the Estonian Institute of Humanities. He graduated from Tallinn Pedagogical University with a degree in directing documentaries (2009). He has worked as a journalist, film director and editor, scriptwriter and copywriter. Filmography: Cherry Tobacco (full-length feature film, 2014), Farts of Fury (full-length feature film, 2011), I Will Survive (documentary, 2011), 184 Kilometers (full-length feature film, 2006), Art of Selling (documentary, 2005), Living Force (documentary, 2003). CHERRY TOBACCO PRESSKIT 6 TECHNICAL DATA Title Cherry Tobacco Original title Kirsitubakas Production Company Kuukulgur Film Producer Anneli Lepp Directors Katrin Maimik, Andres Maimik Scriptwriters Katrin Maimik, Andres Maimik Cinematographer Mihkel Soe Art Director Kristiina Ago Costume Designer Kristiina Ago Editors Marta Pulk, Andres Maimik Composer Sten Sheripov Year of Production 2014 Country of Origin Estonia Duration 93 minutes Genre Drama Language Estonian Subtitles available in English, Russian Shot with Canon EOS C300 Screen Ratio 1:2.39 Release Format DCP (2K), HD World Premiere 9th of July 2014 – Karlovy Vary International Film Festival Domestic Release 16th of October 2014 (Kuukulgur Film) CHERRY TOBACCO PRESSKIT 7 CAST Maris Nõlvak as Laura Gert Raudsep as Joosep Getter Mersemaa as Merit Anne Reemann as Mother Aap Salumets as Egert Viiu Maimik as Grandmother Maarja Jakobson as Karmen PRODUCTION COMPANY Kuukulgur Film is an Estonian production company founded in 2001. The company producers feature films, documentaries, commercials and does also TV-productions. Filmography: Cherry Tobacco (full-length feature, 2014), Photo (short, 2013), Silver Wedding (short, 2013), Farts of Fury (full-length, 2011), The New World (documentary, 2011), I Will Survive (documentary, 2011), 184 Kilometers (full-length feature, 2006), The Art of Selling (documentary, 2005), Choose Order (documentary, 2004) etc. CONTACT: Anneli Lepp Kuukulgur Film Producer [email protected] +372 529 4604 Financiers Estonian Film Institute, Estonian Cultural Endowment CHERRY TOBACCO PRESSKIT 8 CHERRY TOBACCO PRESSKIT 9.