Disco and Atomic War Jaak Kilmi, Estonia, 2009, 78 minutes
Friday, May 14 | 8:30pm | Pacific Cinémathèque
According to Jaak Kilmi, growing up in Soviet-occupied Estonia wasn’t so bad, especially if you had Finnish TV and a digital watch. Luckily he possessed both, and the eight year old’s world was rocked when David Hasselhoff revealed that the latest in timepiece technology made it possible to communicate with cars. What could be better!
Radio waves were the one thing capable of penetrating the iron curtain that divided Finland and Estonia during the Cold War. In the early 70s, the Americans erected a gigantic broadcasting tower on Finland’s southern shores and pointed it directly at the Soviet-occupied Estonia. Disco and Atomic War tells the story of a strange kind of war, where the KGB stands face to face with the heroes of popular culture — and loses.
Kilmi’s father was an electronic engineer who built illegal Finnish TV converters. Without knowing it, his son ended up on the frontline of an ideological media war. Kilmi uses colourful archival footage to recall his warm memories of Friday nights when he tuned in to Dallas to follow the latest clashes between J.R. and Sue Ellen. In Disco, he dramatizes the escapades of a motley group of microchip smugglers and antenna builders who risked imprisonment in the battle for airwave supremacy. Particularly hilarious are several reconstructions of Kilmi’s youth, including his cousin Urve’s obsession with Dallas. With no Finnish TV signal in their area, Jaak’s country relatives depend on his letters for the latest soap opera news. One of the most enjoyable film moments shows the rural family gathered around little Urve as she reads Jaak’s Dallas updates, bringing them all closer to finally finding out who killed J.R.
Making use of countless TV series, movies, commercials, and news broadcasts of the era, Disco and Atomic War offers its own version of recent history, mixing spy games into a human tragicomedy. Interviews with the erstwhile heads of Finnish and Estonian TV and Edward Lucas, author of The New Cold War, provide an historical perspective. The result is a fascinating analysis of a generation that viewed the fantastical world of Jedi Knights and the real life Star Wars as one and the same.
Best Documentary, 2009 Warsaw Film Festival, Poland
Best Documentary, 2009 Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival, Czech Republic
“Adopting a highly idiosyncratic, lighthearted and yet entirely convincing approach to explaining how the communists lost the Cold War, Estonian-Finnish docu Disco And Atomic War reps the latest sprightly effort from consistently original Estonian helmer Jaak Kilmi (Revolution of the Pigs)”.
- Leslie Felperin, Variety
Director’s biography
Jaak Kilmi is well known for his socio-critical feature and documentary films that deal with the Soviet Era and its repercussions on life in Estonia today. He began studying cinematography in 1992 at the Talinn Pedagogical University Film Department. Following the completion of his studies, he directed two short films: Tähesoit and The Human Camera. Jack Kilmi is a member of the Estonian Film Critics Union and writes numerous articles for the specialist press.
