Rao Heidmets used puppet theatre to dramatize the cruelty of the world in Papa Carlo’s Theatre.

New Voices Emerge… Finally
In 1982, Tuganov retired from Nukufilm leaving the studio desperate to find new directors (Heino Pars continued to make films until 1990). Fortunately, this time around the studio’s recruiting efforts were more successful because they went after young people who hadn’t found themselves as artists yet. This new group included Rao Heidmets, Kalju Kivi, Riho Unt and Hardi Volmer. "They didn’t save Estonian puppet animation, but developed it further," says Arvo Nuut. Then again, one could argue that the quartet did in fact save the puppet studio because clearly with Tuganov gone and Pars running out of steam, Nukufilm was desperately in need of some fresh voices to keep film production going. If they did not save Estonian puppet animation, they certainly preserved it.

Rao Heidmets
Rao Heidmets joined Nukufilm in 1982 as an animator and within a year he started his first film, Pigeon Aunt (1983). "It was a good time for me because they were looking for new talents and I started to work with Priit Pärn. He was like my first and only teacher in animation," explains Heidmets.

Pigeon Aunt is an innovative film and the use of a three dimensional cut-out technique immediately sets it apart from anything previously created at Nukufilm. "I feel I did what I wanted with Pigeon Aunt," says Heidmets, "and I remember that I had this thinking that it was a new technique. The 3D cut-out was Pärn’s idea and this was a new technique and I thought that maybe I should adopt this as a style but then I wanted to try different things. Maybe this was a mistake, I don’t know but I think each film I made was different from the last." Pigeon Aunt is an innovative film and the use of a three dimensional cut-out technique immediately sets it apart from anything previously created at Nukufilm. "I feel I did what I wanted with Pigeon Aunt," says Heidmets, "and I remember that I had this thinking that it was a new technique. The 3D cut-out was Pärn’s idea and this was a new technique and I thought that maybe I should adopt this as a style but then I wanted to try different things. Maybe this was a mistake, I don’t know but I think each film I made was different from the last."

Excluding the Christmas film, Päkiapikupuu (1991), Heidmets' most successful works are his last three films: Papa Carlo’s Theatre (1988), Noblesse Oblige (1989) and Living Room (1994). Papa Carlo, made in collaboration with Priit Pärn, uses a puppet theatre as an allegory of a desensitized world where atrocities and violence are an everyday reality. In Noblesse Oblige, Heidmets, using large puppets, this time criticized the shallowness of a bourgeois family. Living Room is Heidmets' most successful film. It is a mix of scratch animation and pixillation. Living Room examines the relationship between three generations: a woman, her father and her young daughter. Heidmets' use of high contrast film, with the violence of the scratched images, and the stuttering pixillated movements, all combine to give the film a dark, tentative and tense environment.

After completing Living Room, Heidmets turned away from animation, making feature films for children. From 1999-2001, he was in charge of the Children and Youth Program at Estonian State TV. This year he returned to animation and has started pre-production on his first puppet film since 1994.

Kalju Kivi
In terms of quality and diversity of techniques, Kalju Kivi is the most ambitious and exciting animator in Estonia. Since his first film, Sheet of Paper (1981), Kivi has animated with objects, puppets, photo collage, cut-out, string, fabric and pixillation. The results have not always been successful, but they are always interesting.

Bride of Star and Kaleidoscope are Kivi’s strongest works. Bride of Star is based on an Estonian folk song and tells the story of a girl whom both the moon and the sun woo, but in the end she accepts the star. The most intriguing part of the film is the narration, which is all sung, and the incredible backgrounds and designs that are all made from rope and fabric materials. Kaleidoscope uses coloured shards of glass to document the evolution of the planet from random motion of objects that transform eventually into more stable, predictable and recognizable natural and human shapes.