Free Range/Ballad on Approving of the World

A mid-level manager who develops an aversion to being "good" finds himself confronting the mysteries of middle-age and morality as he loses grasp of what was once his quiet life.

A young intellectual, Mati, engineers himself into a situation where he has to spend a weekend with his wife Helina and her lover Eduard. The trio goes to Eduard's summer house, surrounded by the majestic scenery of big forests and an empty beach. Mati, either out of jealousy or pride, has decided to win back his wife and will do anything his introverted and inert mind can come up with. What is love? Who can believe in such a thing? Is there anything at all to believe in? It can in its own minimalist way be a very funny experience and also a sad one to be dragged into this world. This film depicts with great accuracy how it is to feel love being an Estonian, someone who is used to low temperatures and repressed emotions.

The film is a collection of one-minute short films created by 60 filmmakers from around the world on the theme of the death of cinema.

The Lapland tundra. Rupi is a young miner who fills his days by traficking in illegal pills, drinking, and dropping coins in a slot machine. After his friend is murdered, Rupi realises that he loves his friend’s widow. But the mine owner wants her too. The violence becomes a spectacle, the tragedy comic, the tundra cold, the people degenerate and hope ephemeral, like a star shooting through the sky. But even in this world, hope briefly rears its head.

A young writer called Mati is stalking his ex-wife, while also trying to make unsuccessful passes at other women. Augusti is a barber living a dreary bachelor life who forms a bond with little girl, but his approaches are misconstrued as pedophilia. Laura, a single mom, tears up over sappy soap operas, but refuses real-life advances from clueless men, because her ability to trust has been ruined by her violent drunk of an ex-husband. Maurer, the architect, worries about the wellbeing of humanity, but ignores his own wife Ulvi, who in turn looks for solace in the arms of a coatroom attendant named Theo. Women have always liked Theo, but due to his low social status, they don't take him seriously. All of these people might inhabit identical tower blocks, but they couldn't feel more alienated from each other if they tried.

Roukli is a film about about love, war and something else. Estonian director Veiko Õunpuu (Autumn Ball, The Temptation of St. Tony, Free Range/Ballad on Approving of the World) made his new film Roukli without institutional financial support. The film was made through an experimental process of improvisation and financed through the Estonian crowdfunding platform Hooandja. According to Õunpuu, the reasons for turning to crowdfunding and improvisation for his new film were creative. “We find creative freedom in independence from institutional support,” Õunpuu said.