In 2026, the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival will present a strong selection of documentaries in its two competitive programmes, with an International showcase of 11 world premieres from around the globe in International Competition and nine documentaries in Baltic Competition. The 30th edition of the festival runs November 6 to 22.
Marianna Kaat, the curator of Doc@PÖFF International and Baltic Competitions comments how she approaches every documentary with “childlike curiosity, hoping to discover a fresh perspective, a compelling character or an insight that stays with me long after the film ends.”
“This year, I was particularly struck by filmmakers finding fresh ways to tell their stories, opening up new possibilities for documentary cinema and its role in defending our sense of reality,” she stresses. These films ask us to look more closely, question our assumptions and resist easy explanations. In a world where so much comes to us already interpreted, that feels especially necessary.”
DOC@PÖFF INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION
The Doc@PÖFF International Competition brings together stories of self-discovery, family ties and the search for belonging, organisers underline. From camel racing in the Sinai Peninsula to an experiment in workplace democracy inside a Michelin-starred restaurant, from queer cultural memory to the hidden mechanisms of control within a Danish Christian sect, the films reveal unexpected sides of human experience. Alongside them are intimate accounts of people seeking freedom, rebuilding their lives and finding their own voice amid conflict, displacement or family expectations.
Doc@PÖFF International Competition Lineup
- Birthday Candles (Azerbaijan) – dir. Murad Allahverdi
- Child of Sinaï (Egypt, France) – dir. Loup Bureau
- Father’s House (Denmark) – dir. Adam Nielsen, Andreas Koefoed, Eva Mulvad
- Fruitcakes: The Dawn of Drag (Finland, Denmark) – dir. Vesa Kuosmanen
- Lost and Found: Thirty Years, Not Together (Romania) – dir. Laurentiu Garofeanu
- Love Exposed (Czechia) – dir. Filip Remunda – International Premiere
- Sentenced at Birth (Moldova) – dir. Daniela Miron, Diana Vlas
- The Taste of Democracy (Hungary) – dir. Péter Akar, Ambrus Fatér
- The War We Carry (Denmark) – dir. Kaspar Astrup Schröder
- Three Comrades (France) – dir. Anastasiia Vedenskaia
- Tingatinga Between Two Homes (China) – dir. Yong Zhang
The Doc@PÖFF International jury is headed by Finnish director and screenwriter Karin Pennanen, whose feature documentary Days of Wonder premiered at PÖFF in 2025 and won the Doc@PÖFF International Competition. The jury also includes Roman Bondarchuk, Ukrainian filmmaker, artistic director of Docudays UA and co-founder of the Ukraine War Archive; Israel Bañuelos, Mexican-Estonian sound designer and re-recording mixer, founder of Acousmatic Film Sound. He has collaborated on more than 100 films that have been showcased in numerous prestigious festivals.
DOC@PÖFF BALTIC COMPETITION
Doc@PÖFF Baltic Competition, taking place for the second time, showcases the best documentaries from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. In 2026, the selection includes five World Premieres.
From the world of ballet to life by the sea, the nine films in the Doc@PÖFF Baltic Competition invite audiences to meet people pursuing their passions, discovering new possibilities and holding on to what matters most. Fishermen, dancers and artists share the screen with people rebuilding their lives or defending their homeland. Reaching from the Baltic region to Iceland and Ukraine, these stories explore our connections to nature, family and home, with room for both joy and difficult questions.
Doc@PÖFF Baltic Competition Lineup
- Baltic UXO (Lithuania, Germany, Latvia) – dir. Alexander Belinski, Agnė Dovydaitytė – World Premiere
- i want to be human (Lithuania) – dir. Rinaldas Tomaševičius – World Premiere
- Ice, Men and a Starling (Estonia) – dir. Mihkel Oksmann – World Premiere
- La Pietà (Iceland, Lithuania, Spain) – dir. Pepe Andreu, Rafa Molés
- Living On (Lithuania) – dir. Nerijus Milerius
- Memory from the Sea (Lithuania) – dir. Francesco Rufini – World Premiere
- Riga my Love (Latvia) – dir. Karolina Peterson
- The Perfect (Estonia) – dir. Laura Liventaal – World Premiere
- To Die To Live (Ukraine, Latvia, Slovakia) – dir. Yuliia Hontaruk
The jury of the Doc@PÖFF Baltic Competition is headed by Christian Popp, a senior film producer and former commissioning editor with over 35 years of experience in the film industry. He is accompanied by Rada Šešić, a film director, lecturer and festival programmer and Carmen L. Vicencio, the Supervising Director at American Documentary Inc.
In addition to the competition programmes around 50 feature documentaries will be screened across various programmes at the festival.
