Already running, Tallinn΄s Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF), 18 years old now, embraces a cluster of events, accommodating three full-blown sub-festivals (Animated Dreams, Just Film, Sleepwalkers) as well as international industry events bringing together filmmakers from all over the world. PÖFF is one of the largest and most distinctive film events in Northern Europe and belongs to the 15 leading film festivals of the world.

The festival is composed of three competition programmes (International Competition, Tridens Competition, and North-American Competition), a traditional film festival program with documentaries and feature films, a co-production market, as well as programs for short films, retrospectives and special events.

This year, Black Nights FF is presenting 18 in total International and European premieres, highlighting in the same time the Foreign Language Oscar contenders with the 19 films proposed for the foreign language film Academy Award. Also, 9 films nominated or awarded at the European Film Academy Awards, among them Nuri Bilge Ceylan΄s Winter Sleep with three nominations. Beside the three competition sections, PÖFF holds a series of various and diverse sections filled with films for every taste, and, of course, from the Balkans.

International Official Competition, where several international and regional premieres take place, features the film Inferno by Vinko Möderndorfer (Slovenia, 2014), the Off The Wall section presents films from the former Eastern Block, including Monument to Michael Jackson by Darko Lungulov (Serbia, Germany, F.Y.R.O.M, 2014), No One΄s Child by Vuk Rsumovic (Serbia, Croatia, 2013), Andrei Gruzsniczki΄s Quod erat demonstrandum (Romania, 2013) and Viktoria by Maya Vitkova (Bulgaria, Romania, 2013).

Panorama program screens the world΄s most awarded contemporary films, ones like A Blast by Syllas Tzoumerkas (Greece, Germany, Netherlands, 2014), Cure: The Life of Another by Andrea Štaka (Switzerland, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, 2014), Number 55 by Kristijan Milic (Croatia, 2014), Erol Mintas΄ Song of My Mother (Turkey, France, 2014), The Reaper by Zvonimir Juric (Croatia, Slovenia, 2014), These Are The Rules by Ognjen Svilicic (Croatia, France, Serbia, F.Y.R.O.M, 2014) and the French-Greek-Iranian film Red Rose by Sepideh Farsi (2014).

Black Nights FF is also about inciting discussions on film content and form – one of the reasons the Forum program selected the films At Home by Athanasios Karanikolas (Greece,Germany, 2014), Sivas by Kaan Müjdeci (Turkey,Germany, 2014), The Tree by Sonja Prosenc (Slovenia, 2014) and Nevio Marasovic΄s Vis-a-Vis from Croatia (2013).

One of the festival΄s most exciting section, is the Screen International Critic΄s Choice program, with some of the best and cutting edge films of the past year. The latest films of Richard Linklater, Mike Leigh, Alejandro González Iñárritu and Roy Andersson, as well as the smashing and awarded ΄71 by Yann Demange from UK and The Tribe by  Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy from Ukraine. Winter Sleep by Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Turkey, Germany, France, 2014) is one of the highlights of the program.

Another Balkan film playing at PÖFF 2014 its Stephan Komandarev΄s The Judgement (Bulgaria, F.Y.R.O.M, Germany, Croatia, 2013), presented in the 18 Selected Titles program, while Xenia by Panos H. Koutras has been included in the So Different, So Similar Special Programme, an overview of the versatility of the cinema. Documentaries are -mainly- represented in the Doc@POFF section, screening 40 docs, including the Czech-German-Turkish Istanbul United by Farid Eslam and Oliver Waldhauer (2014).

Sports (EOK Presents section), animations (Animated Dreams section) and short films (Sleepwalkers program) are also represented at Black Nights, like Industry and Market are. 

Baltic Event (November 25-28), is the largest regional film market in the North-Eastern Europe, it has highlighted an amazing array of feature film projects and is designed for producers from the countries with low audiovisual production capacity. 13 projects are presented this year, including Never Let It Go by Paul Negoescu (producer Paul Negoescu, Papillon Film, Romania), How Far Is Europe by Igor Cobileanski, Valeriu Andriuta, Ion Sapdaru, Dorian Boguta, Pavel Cuzuioc, Dumitru Grosei (producers Igor Cobileanski, Dan Burlac, Brio Film Production) and Our Family by Jan Cvitkovič (producer Aleš Pavlin, Perfo, Slovenia).