Mart Taniel

Camera operator

August 11, 1976 (49 years)

Tallinn, Harju District, Estonian SSR, USSR [now Harju County, Estonia]

Biography

Mart Taniel (born August 11, 1976 in Tallinn) is an Estonian film director, cinematographer and film operator. 2000-2005 he studied at Tallinn University in operator speciality.

Filmography

5.9

Azrael

In a world where no one speaks, a devout female hunts down a young woman who has escaped her imprisonment. Recaptured by its ruthless leaders, Azrael is due to be sacrificed to pacify an ancient evil deep within the surrounding wilderness.

6.9

1944

The events of the war in 1944, from the Blue Hills to Sõrve Peninsula. Shown through the eyes of Estonian soldiers who had to pick sides and fight against fellow brothers. Choices have to be made, not only by the soldiers, but also by their loved ones.

7.1

King of Devil's Island

Norwegian winter, 1915. On the island Bastøy, outside Oslo, a group of young boys aged 11 to 18, are held in an institution for delinquent youth, notorious for its sadistic regime. One day a new boy, Erling, arrives, determined to escape from the island. After a tragic incident, he ends up leading the boys in a violent uprising. When the boys manage to take over the island, 150 soldiers are sent in to restore order.

5.8

Undergods

An otherworldly journey through a Europe in decline - a collection of darkly humorous, fantasy tales about ill-fated characters and doomed fortune.

7.1

November

In a poor Estonian village, a group of peasants use magic and folk remedies to survive the winter, and a young woman tries to get a young man to love her.

6.8

Captain Volkonogov Escaped

Captain Fedor Volkonogov works in law enforcement. He is on the good books of the management, and his colleagues respect him. But one day, his life abruptly changes: he is declared a criminal. The Captain manages to run away before he is arrested. Suddenly he turns into an outcast, whom his former colleagues search across the whole city. At night Volkonogov is visited by a messenger from the other world, who warns him that after death he will go hell and be tormented forever. But he has an opportunity to change his fate and get to paradise if he repents, and at least one person forgives him. The Captain embarks on his way to find forgiveness. But he cannot even fathom what tests are awaiting him on this way.

4.3

Intimate Parts

Residents of a big city, each of whom has their own sexual problems and desires, secret and, most often, shameful from the point of view of society, need to solve them. Each of the characters tries to solve their problems in their own way: someone sublimates them, someone turns to a psychotherapist for help, someone rushes into experiments... but sooner or later they all return to where they started, and they have to overcome themselves again and again to get at least a little, even a millimeter closer to their happiness.

5.3

Lake Bodom

Four friends are spending the night at Lake Bodom, where unsolved murders took place many years ago. The young men are determined to venture into the dense forest to solve the mystery.

5.4

Autumn Ball

Autumn in Estonia, where six people live, six solitudes, prisoners of the monotonous architecture of Soviet-era concrete buildings, in search of human companionship, of love, of a ray of light in an ocean of gray.

5.0

The Riddle of Jaan Niemand

After ten years of war, plague and famine, the land is swept clean of people. The few remaining souls are scattered about, living in misery and lacking hope. An anxious silence hangs over the land. On one particularly starry night, two peasants find a stranger on the seashore.

6.2

The Invisible Fight

After surviving a deadly attack, a guard on the Soviet-Chinese border decides to become a monk but must continually prove along the way that he's capable of becoming the enlightened man he set out to be.

3.2

186 Kilometers

Jan Uuspõld is a talented actor who is not up to scratch due to his problems with alcohol. He makes up his mind to stop taking clownish roles and accepts a serious part in a play at Vanemuise theatre instead. His journey from Tallinn to Tartu becomes an unusual and in a way exaggerated voyage depicting the life and mentality of contemporary Estonia through various human natures, attitudes and ways of thinking.

5.7

Shop of Dreams

Three friends return from a vacation and discover that the TV studio they work for has gone bankrupt - so they decide to start their own costume renting business.

6.2

The County

A widowed farmer begins a new life on her own terms by fighting against corruption and injustice in her community.

5.5

The Man Who Surprised Everyone

Egor Korshunov (40) is a Siberian forest guard who works in a local environmental company, fighting fearlessly against poachers in taiga. Egor is a great family man, respected by his fellow villagers. He and his wife Natalia are expecting a second child. Unexpectedly, Egor finds out that he has terminal cancer and has only two months left to live. No traditional medicine or shamanic magic can save Egor. Finally, left with no other options, he decides to take the last desperate step. He attempts to completely change his identity in order to fool the oncoming death, just like Zhamba the drake, the hero of a legendary ancient Siberian epos, did.

6.9

The Temptation of St. Tony

A mid-level manager who develops an aversion to being a good person questions his morality as he faces the challenges of middle age and loses control of his life.

6.0

Nazis and Blondes

Veteran actors from the 3 Baltic countries - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - gather at a castle in Latvia to receive awards for their roles as Nazi villains in propagandist Soviet war films. They reminisce about the films that made them famous throughout the USSR, but also stigmatized the Baltic countries as Nazi sympathizers in the eyes of many Russians - a misconception that is nowadays exploited by the Russian media, desperate to label the Baltic countries as a fascist haven.

N/A

The Override

On a quiet Los Angeles night, 17-year-old Becca enters a rideshare for a routine trip home—unaware her driver is a killer mid-spree, turning the ride into a fight for survival.

5.5

Empty

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.

5.1

The Idiot

A story of a naive man, whose direct behavior stirs in people moral unrest, rage and embarrassment over their own pettiness, making them yearn for goodness.