The City of Tallinn, the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival aka PÖFF, and Tallinn Film Wonderland have reached an agreement that a green area dedicated to the film festival will be established next to the future studio complex Tallinn Film Wonderland.
Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, PÖFF has taken on to create a public green space in Tallinn urban space, planting trees and installing urban art and other infrastructure objects dedicated to honorary guests and award winners of the festival, as well as people from Estonia and abroad who have made significant contributions to PÖFF and to film in general.
The Deputy Mayor of Tallinn Vadim Belobrovtsev admitted that the establishment of the PÖFF Park will enrich city space and symbolically connects the goals of the Tallinn as the European Green Capital 2023 with the local cultural scene. ”It is not insignificant that the park to be created is in line with the environmental goals of the development strategy Tallinn 2035. The idea is offering both local residents and guests a way to spend healthy pastime and enhancing diversity of urban nature,” said Belobrovtsev.
Tiina Lokk, Festival Director of PÖFF, said that the festival team is extremely pleased that the idea of the park has found enough support to finally implement it. "Large historical festivals always have a strong connection with their hosting cities, which is usually expressed in spatial form - be it a film palace built in an urban space or pavement stones with the handprints of stars on the streets," Lokk explained. “With PÖFF, we wanted to make a contribution to the development of Tallinn's green areas, meanwhile giving dignified recognition to the people involved in the festival. The location around the future film campus creates a great dialogue with the surroundings.”
In order to fulfil the agreement to create the park, PÖFF will establish a special environmental support fund Rohehunt (Green Wolf) that will enable everyone interested in Estonia and elsewhere to support the park. Like the constantly evolving environment, the development of the PÖFF park will be gradual and proceed according to the economic possibilities and cooperation partners of the project.
A 1.5-hectare low maintenance nature area will be established in the coming years at Paljassaare tee 1b and 1c. The building of the park was symbolically launched last week, when the counterparts planted the first tree - a Sakhalin rowan - in the location of the future greenspace.