Manfred Vainokivi

Our Erika (2026)

The inspiring journey of Estonian track bicycle racer Erika Salumäe, as she navigates the pressures of fame, personal sacrifice, and national pride, redefining resilience in the pursuit of her Olympic dreams. ...

Spit in My Face (2023)

This small, personal, honest experiment on a minimalist budget is edited from 12 years of nostalgic archival footage and ironical pranks. Mostly it is Manfred behind the camera. He follows Kristjan's encounters and drunken conversations with the self-procl ...

Mo Mamma (2023)

Mother Karin and daughter Mari are facing the demise of Mamma, Karin's mother and Mari's grandmother. They both release their pain on each other, but in unconditional love, everything is allowed. ...

Stairway to Heaven (2023)

With his last breath Uu's friend entrusts him with the secret of how to go to the past. Uu is an engineer and doesn't believe in miracles, but the trick works. In the past there is a pleasant, eternal summer, long hair, girls and Jenkki chewing gum. In his ...

Gori the Caricaturist (2023)

A richly animated documentary about the extremely popular caricaturist Gori, whose fate in Estonia at the beginning of the last century shows the balance between power and freedom like a mirror. In the Fellini-like world of Gori (1894-1944), farce and dram ...

The Best of Salieri (2021)

It is time to get out of the closet and show the world your teeth. The director, who considers himself to be Mozart, has been tootling with his films in the festival circuit for years, waiting for a big breakthrough. For an inexplicable reason, the world h ...

On the Water (2021)

Andres is a sensitive teenager raised by his strict grandparents in a small bland Soviet Estonian town. He is being bullied at school and his only friends are the drunkards, whores, and thieves living next door. ...

Estonian Funeral (2021)

A wide range of relatives and acquaintances have traveled to a funeral, and as is typical of Estonians, the sad event turns into a comical one as the evening develops. The primordial disputes that arise among the Estonians take on hyperbolic dimensions as ...

Mephistopheles (2020)

From time to time, Mephistopheles manifests himself to the Estonian people through Linnar Priimägi. The released energy gives birth to chaos. Manfred Vainokivi tries his hardest to portray the one who causes it. Unsuccessfully, of course. Because even the ...

In Bed with a Writer (2019)

A portrait of the writer Peeter Sauter, who has reached a low point after a divorce and thus also lost his desire to write. To get over this crisis, the writer embarks on a curious journey. ...

The Story Of Peep Puks (2019)

Filmmaker Peep Puks has directed 61 documentaries and created almost 40 programmes for television. In this film, he looks back on a lost time, the films that have accompanied him, and the colleagues without whom this all wouldn't have happened. It's also t ...

Long Live the Scandals! (2018)

Leonhard Lapin is the classic and the enfant terrible of Estonian contemporary art, constantly followed by scandals, lewd legends and envious grumbling. Lapin confidently steps on the cornea of mediocrity, enjoying the situation to the fullest. Loved by hi ...

Rodeo (2018)

A documentary exploring the difficulties the newly-independent Estonia faced in the early 1990s after emerging from decades of Soviet rule. The film focuses especially on then-32-year-old and inexperienced Mart Laar, who became country's prime minister whi ...

The End of the Chain (2017)

A secluded fast food joint next to an empty parking lot, where it's good to go because nobody recognizes you there. On a rainy autumnal day, people show up one after the other – all of them on the verge of a breakdown – or perhaps a breakthrough? The m ...

Family Lies (2016)

The film is set in a town that has a professional symphony orchestra, managed by authoritarian and confident Paul Levald, who has conducted both the orchestra and his family affairs for years. Due to dramatic events, Paul's son-in-law Egon Rei must unexpec ...

Red Cabaret (2016)

Cabaret has always been place for courageous and passionate people. Passion on stage will take audience along. Some will get turned on, some will despise. Cabaret in Soviet times was against all rules. But it happened. And cabaret was hugely successful. To ...

Stealing Socialism (2014)

A jolly documentary that tells a story of Soviet time life style when stealing from the state was an act of honour for common people. Stealing from corrupted state helped to get by and held moral high. The common man felt that the state was stealing from h ...

Beggar Writer's House (2012)

Why do we care for writers who don't care for anything or anybody, even not for themselves? Still we need them and feed them, we love them and give shelter. Can it be that at certain moments we would like to be writers and also have this love-hate relation ...

Baskin (2012)

Portrait of Eino Baskin, an entertainer who has attracted audience (esp women) for years. His private life has been tragicomic, full of laughter and tears. Baskin has been admired by ones and cursed by others, has been imprisoned after a fabricated porn co ...

September (2010)

September is a film about the complicated choices of simple people. The internationally renowned Estonian author, Jaan Kross (1920-2007) was arrested in 1944 by the Nazis. A year after the Soviet forces entered Tallinn and he was arrested again. The accusa ...

Bank Robbery (2009)

When a former fistfighter Madis leaves the prison, he feels he will get another chance in life. Nothing can go wrong this time. Madis will be accompanied by his nephew who has something completely opposite in his mind. A game begins where both the weak and ...

Disco and Atomic War (2009)

A different history of the Cold War: how Estonians under Soviet tyranny began to feel the breeze of freedom when a group of anonymous dreamers successfully used improbable methods to capture the Finnish television signal, a window into Western popular cult ...

Jolly Old Farts (2009)

A portrait of two ageing cinema professionals who find motivation to live through endless quarrelling and challenging each other. An old film director and a camera man know a secret - when out of work you'll have to get fun and turn your own life into a fi ...

Valli baar (2008)

All towns in the world have legendary bars and drinking places. Tiny Valli Bar in Tallinn links different times and people and the film is a portrait of Estonian drinking scene. Shooting months turned out jolly, but also dramatic. One of the participants w ...

Greetings from Soviet Estonia! (2007)

Alien or: The Escape of Valdis in 11 Chapters (2006)

After being whacked on the head with a shovel, Valdis no longer shows interest in the things that used to make his life worthwhile: alcohol, techno, cars and fights. His friends desperately try to help him regain his memory, but nothing works. ...

The Blue Hills (2006)

A documentary on the volunteer Estonian Army's defense against the Soviet Army in 1944 with an emphasis on its last stand in the region known as the Blue Hills of Estonia. ...

Mat the Cat (2005)

Martin a boy with adjustment difficulties, moves with his mother to a new place. Martin has a habit of always getting into all kinds of trouble, and on the last day of school, everything goes wrong. Martin likes the school principal's daughter Marta, but t ...

Madonna Is Not Dead A.D. 2050 (2000)

Two elderly people have decided to start having children. There was no time for this in their youth, they had to work hard to survive. Now, in retirement, nimble old people are making children for sale to spend the night with beer, cigarettes and cocaine. ...

Sulev Nõmmik (1987)

Everyone has their own Sulev Nõmmik. To whom the director Sulev Nõmmik, to whom Kärna Ärni alias Ernst Kern, some remember him as a ballet dancer, others as a satirist. What these parts mean together and whether the whole can be divided, the film tries ...

Spit in My Face (2023)

This small, personal, honest experiment on a minimalist budget is edited from 12 years of nostalgic archival footage and ironical pranks. Mostly it is Manfred behind the camera. He follows Kristjan's encounters and drunken conversations with the self-procl ...

The Best of Salieri (2021)

It is time to get out of the closet and show the world your teeth. The director, who considers himself to be Mozart, has been tootling with his films in the festival circuit for years, waiting for a big breakthrough. For an inexplicable reason, the world h ...