Kalev

The feature film is based on true events. In 1991, the Estonian team "Kalev" won the last basketball championship of the USSR. This victory was not easy to achieve. Back home, the players led by coach Jaak Salumets were criticised, among other things, because a Russian player was added to the team at the last moment - who made the difference in terms of sport. Ove Musting's riveting sports drama balances the athletes' private stories with the epic historical events that shook the world while "Kalev" was hitting his 3-pointers. Not forgotten, for example, are the tragic events in Vilnius in January 1991, when the Soviet army tried to suppress supporters of the restoration of Lithuanian independence. The characters in the film are forced to search for answers to the most difficult and still topical questions: What is more important - sporting career or political boycott? Is sport an instrument of dialogue or a means of flying the flag? 

The set design is impressive. Musting repeatedly places his characters in brutalist 19870s/80s Soviet architecture, in buildings that look so solid from the outside but are completely decaying on the inside - just like the repressive political system that is about to disappear forever. This highly topical reflection on a historical event became a box office hit in Estonia.

Text: Ksenia Reutova

The film will be shown in the original language with English subtitles and simultaneously translated into German. Headphones are available free of charge against a deposit in the cinema foyer.