Rein Raamat 90

Elise Eimre
Rein Raamat – an Artist in the
Film Industry
Rein Raamat graduated from the Estonian National Institute of Art
in 1957 as a painter-portraitist. Already in the autumn of the same
year, Raamat started work at Tallinna Kinostuudio. His first film
was Days of June and he was an assistant under the godfather of
local cinema Peeter Linzbach. Raamat’s career as an art director
came to an end with the film White Ship. By the premiere in 1971, the
student had transformed into a 40-year-old filmmaker with a clear
vision. He combined the two worlds and created the Tallinnfilm
drawn animation studio the same year. The presentation looks into
Raamat’s creative path from an artist to a filmmaker and the symbiosis
of the two creative roles in his work as an art director. Based
on interviews, archival materials and film analysis the focus will be
on Raamat’s position in the film industry and his most noteworthy
work on films Devil on Earth (1964) and The Last Relic (1969).
Elise Eimre (b. 1990) is an art historian who studies the aesthetics
and history of film art. She has a bachelor’s degree (2013) in art
history from the Estonian Academy of Arts and a master’s degree
(2015) in film art from Tallinn University. She is writing her doctoral
dissertation Designing Cinematic Images. Production Design of
Estonian Feature Films, 2000–2015. She has presented her research
at numerous international conferences. In addition to research,
Elise Eimre works as a festival programmer for the Black Nights Film
Festival and manages the PÖFF Black Room program for international
masterclasses for film artists. She is a member of the Estonian
Film Journalists’ Association and publishes film reviews in various
Estonian publications.
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