“Patterns of Freedom” /”Vabaduse mustrid” – A feature length documentary film in English and Estonian(subtitled).   Leaving with nothing more than a fierce love of their culture and the skills in their hands,  generations of indigenous Estonians fled their homeland in 1944 fleeing the brutality of the advancing Soviet soldiers.  This multi-award winning film focuses on stories of the women who kept that spirit alive through work of their hands and the woven patterns of their ancestors.   We are creating 60-minute and 44-minute versions of Patterns of Freedom for broadcast.

In Search of Our Fathers (ISOOF) is a project with multiple films.  The first film “Raising the Flag”/’Lipu heiskamine” (12 min) tells the story of a small group of youth, who in the midst of war and chaos, decided their task was to raise the Estonian flag on Pikk Hermann Tower and succeeded.  The story is told in delightful animation.  This film was given as a joint gift between Mae Productions Inc and the Estonian Studies Centre to celebrate (EV100) the 100th Anniversary of Estonian independence in 2018.  Free screenings are still available in 2019, so please contact us if you would like to book one for your organization.

We continue collecting stories as time and funding permits.  We have collected some Latvian men’s stories and are working on a docudrama that would tell the stories of the men who fled the Baltics in WWII.  Some of these stories are harrowing, but all demonstrate the resilience and love of home and country that carried their culture forward in exile.  We are also working on a unique creative approach to films about Armas Maiste, our beloved Jazz pianist and Arne Roosman, our well known artist.