Sundial

Children explore the area on skis. A woman warms a cup of tea at the fire; another practises the accordion. A father plays chess with his son while his daughter knits. A young herder gathers his sheep. These are snapshots of the everyday lives of various people in Estonia – and they could have taken place 100 years ago. No mobile phones, no television, not even a car can be seen on the grainy 16mm images. A shared inner rhythm assembles the worlds of the people depicted into a whole. They appear to be in harmony with their surroundings; any hustle and bustle seems far away. Though there are occasional short pieces of dialogue, none of the characters is given a name – the static camera merely observes them and their animal companions as they go about their business. Liis Nimik's first feature-length documentary radically rejects any narrative, and in an almost meditative way creates a panorama of rural life far from the demands of the modern world.