Screening of the Estonian documentary “Ashes & money”

On November 24, 18:00, the Foundation DOTS invites to the screening of the Estonian documentary “Ash & money” at the cinema K.SUNS (Riga, Elizabetes iela 83/85). The film documents a creation of the fictious political movement – one of the biggest social experiments in Estonian history. A conversation with one of the leaders of this initiatives, head of the management board of Estonian think-tank “Praxis” Tarmo Juristo, will take place after the screening.

In 2010 Theatre NO99 came out with a production that theatralised the whole Estonian society. NO75 Unified Estonia assembly was a fictious political movement created by Theatre NO99 that a large portion of the public treated as a real political force. In a unique way it combined performing arts, politics, media and civil society. For the 44 days from the first press conference to the culmination of the founding assembly of the fictious party with 7000 people attending, Unified Estonia was followed by a film team that thoroughly documented the project.

Ash and Money is the first film project by Theatre NO99. It is a full lenght making-of documentary that sheds light into how NO75 Unified Estonia came to be, interviews the people behind the project and also many political figures in office at the time and looks into how the process of creating possibly the biggest contemporary performing arts event in recent European history evolved in real time. Unified Estonia encompassed the fears and hopes, the manipulations and disappointments connected with how politics is made in contemporary democracies. It was a stunt of fictious hyperpopulism meant to make the true populism in real life redundant. The documentary shows the full variety of emotions and the dramatic turns that were experienced by the makers of Unified Estonia.

Length of the documentary: 1 hour 38 minutes.

The film will be shown in Estonian language with subtitles in English and simultaneous translation into Latvian. A conversation after the screening will take place in English with simultaneous translation into Latvian.

Admission is free with Eventbrite tickets: