PÖFF Shorts is a sub-festival of the Black Nights Film Festival, dedicated to showcasing the very best fiction, animation and documentary shorts from across the world. With five competitions – which are Academy Award qualifying, BAFTA qualifying and European Film Award qualifying – as well as a large selection of side programmes and retrospectives, PÖFF Shorts is an anticipated event on the festival circuit not only for the breadth and diversity of its programme but also for the talent it showcases.
Celebrating the art of the short film in and of itself and being there to champion the unique nature of the medium, we also recognise that short films are the beginning of a cinematic journey that will lead to feature films for many young filmmakers. With the world of short films filled with bright and exciting young talents, many filmmakers who are currently making a mark on the world of short films will soon be stepping into the world of features.
Go Long aims to nurture a select number of filmmakers whose shorts have screened in competition at PÖFF Shorts. Taking filmmakers at the beginning of their journey into the world of feature films, Go Long offers the participants advice on their ideas via informal networking with a panel of industry professionals. The participants will then be able to better negotiate the feature film world with invaluable tips and feedback for their feature proposals.
Participants & experts for the 2024 editions will be announced in autumn
Darcy Cagen
Darcy Cagen is a writer and filmmaker based in Los Angeles. Her debut short film Francis Bacon is currently on the film festival circuit and has screened at film festivals all over the world, including the Academy and BAFTA-Qualifying Palm Springs International ShortFest and PÖFF Shorts Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival. She has a Bachelor's in Film Studies from Barnard College of Columbia University.
Iiti Yli-Harja
Iiti Yli-Harja (b. 1987) is a film director and musician. She is a doctoral researcher at Aalto University at the Department of Film. She uses stop motion techniques in her films, where fiction and documentary material support each other. Her films often explore human multidimensionality and incompleteness: the precious and sometimes funny humanity. Her style is rich: the films burst out with natural dialogue and the relatable chaos of life. Yli-Harja's films have won numerous awards, e.g. All My Mom’s Phone Calls (2021) received Finland's premier Jussi Award for the best short film in 2023, and the film BLUSH – An Extraordinary Voyage (2022) received the Finnish Film Foundation's main award, the Risto Jarva award in 2023.
Carmen-Louise Suuroja
Carmen-Louise Suuroja is a filmmaker based in Tallinn, Estonia. Carmen works part-time as a first or second Assistant Director and Production Assistant on local independent film productions, commercials or TV. She is currently studying Film Directing at the Baltic Film and Media School and is set to graduate in 2026. Suuroja directed in 2023 the short film Nostalgia in Red, shot in 16 mm, which is screening in the International New
Talents Competition program at PÖFF Shorts (Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival). She gathers inspiration from literature, the surrounding world and is drawn towards poetic and atmospheric cinema. She is currently building her body of work as a director.
Pablo Martinez Ballarin
Pablo Martinez Ballarin was born in Huesca, but raised in Madrid, Spain. He graduated in Fine Arts and moved to Estonia to study animation in 2017. He has had a happy life so far. He moved to animate in Belgium. He died in Las Vegas.
Edoardo Brighenti
Edoardo is an award-winning director based in London. His short films have screened at a number of festivals around the globe including OSCAR-Qualifying film festivals Izmir, InterFilm, Athens (Ohio) and BAFTA-Qualifying Cork Film Festival. His latest short film “Dream Car Wash” is now on its festival run. Cast includes acclaimed actors Isabella Nefar (Apple TV’s “Teheran,” BBC “The Gold”) and Nabil Elouahabi (Neflix’s Top Boy, ITVX’s Trigger Point). His second unit credits include the upcoming HE-TV drama A Thousand Blows written by Steven Knight (“Peaky Blinders”) for Disney+, BBC/HBO “Industry,” Apple TV’s Little America. Edoardo is one of the winners of music video competition Mixing Colours launched by legendary musician and producer Brian Eno. His entry Julie Dancing For Brian Eno has now become the official music video of Iris by Roger & Brian Eno and it has screened at The Music Centre in Los Angeles. Edoardo lives in East London and likes hummus, analogue photography and art he can't afford.
Anna Ciennik
Polish-born, French-educated, Anna Ciennik graduated from la fémis French film school in 2010 from the production department. She worked in various capacities – as line producer and post-production supervisor – before joining Les Arcs European Film Festival as manager of the European Industry events. Between 2017 and 2021, she curated five editions of its co-production markets. After the pandemic, Anna turned to script development. She works as a script consultant for various labs such as Open Doors, TFL's ScriptLab, ESP, among others. Her credits include Clara Sola by Nathalie Álvarez Mesén (Directors’ Fortnight 2021), Amparo by Simón Mesa Soto (Cannes Critics’ Week 2021) and Julie Keeps Quiet by Leonardo Van Dijl (Cannes Critics’ Week 2024). She also co-wrote Erige Sehiri's (Under the Fig Tree 2022) sophomore feature to be released in 2025. Anna is a member of the Collectif 5050, the SCA, and she is a bit of a wine and language geek.
Kristel Tõldsepp
Kristel Tõldsepp has been a producer of the animation studio A Film Estonia since 1996 and the owner of the same company since 2011. She holds an MA degree in Economics and has attended several workshops in TV and animation production around Europe. Tõldsepp has been a production manager on more than twenty animated feature films and ten TV series. Tõldsepp has also produced ten short films, the TV series Things You Think and the feature films Raggie (2020) and Poop, Spring and Others (2023).
Katharina Suckale
Katharina Suckale has a background in the film and TV business for more than 30 years, from sales and distribution at MK2 in Paris, Yash Raj Films in Mumbai to film and TV production in Europe, from Germany to Portugal, and from Canada to Africa. She developed series concepts for Canal+ France, ZDF, Disney+, and other channels and platforms for the European, Indian, and international markets. BBFP is based in Mumbai and Berlin. The film LOEV was released worldwide on Netflix in 180 countries after 40+ major festivals from Tallinn Black Nights to SXSW and BFI Flare.
Aurelia Aasa
Aurelia Aasa is the founder of one of Estonia's leading production companies AAA Creative, where she works as a producer and communications expert. The film Sierra, produced by Aasa, was the first Baltic short to reach the Oscars shortlist, making it into the top 15. To date, AAA Creative's films have travelled to hundreds of festivals, including Sundance, Clermont-Ferrand, Palm Springs ShortFest, AFI Fest, San Francisco IFF, Ottawa, etc, winning dozens of awards. The screening rights for AAA films have been acquired by The Criterion Channel, Arte, Yle, and others. As a film journalist, Aurelia has contributed to publications such as Sirp, Müürileht, Edasi, Postimees, Eesti Päevaleht, Värske Rõhk, ERR’s cultural portal, Estonian Film, among others, publishing hundreds of articles. She was named Film Journalist of the Year in 2019.
Rickard Olsson
Rickard Olsson is a freelance producer and film industry consultant operating out of Turin, Italy, and with over twenty-five years of experience in various positions for companies, funds and institutions in the audiovisual sector across Europe.
Fredrik Lange
Film Production Studies, graduating in 2005. Master’s in Film Production from Gothenburg University in 2010. The film “Reconstructing Utøya” that he produced and co-wrote won two Swedish Guldbagge Awards and was nominated for the Nordic Council Film Prize 2019. The short Excess Will Save Us won a Guldbagge in 2020. EAVE 2020, Producers Network 2021. The hybrid feature Excess Will Save Us won the Special Jury Award in Rotterdam in 2022. He also works as a lecturer in film at Gothenburg University since 2021.