"Sundial" won the best film award at Beldocs

Liis Nimik's documentary film "Sundial" (Päikeseaeg) won the best film award at the Beldocs documentary film festival in Serbia. The film competed in the international competition program, and the jury justified its choice with the words: "With sensitive care and precise framing, Liis Nimik creates a delicate but magnetically alive world, charged with an almost animistic force, moving through the seasons and through the everyday rhythms of Estonian countryside."

"Sundial" premiered at the long-standing Visions du Reél festival in Switzerland last April and has traveled to 15 festivals around the world to date. In Estonia, the film "Päikesaeag" has been awarded twice - the film has received the Kulka Documentary of the Year and Docpoint's Young Filmmaker Award. "Sundial" was also a Neitsi Maal nominee and was nominated in the categories of best documentary film, best editing and best sound direction at the EFTAs.

The director, screenwriter, editor and producer of the film is Liis Nimik, cinematographer Erik Põllumaa, screenwriter Anti Naulainen, sound director Israel Banuelos, producer Edina Csyllög. The film was produced by Klara Films.

In nature everything is in balance. In the circle of life, which never ends, everyone has their task - plants and mushrooms, insects and animals... Tis diverse orchestra always fnds its rhythm and tone. Recognizing the distinctiveness of being human, this flm looks at what are our possibilities to peacefully co-exist within that co-creation of nature. For nearly seven years of exploring the periphery countryside of Estonia, this oneiric journey flmed on 16mm brings to the foreground the daily rhythms of ordinary people and animals in diferent ages and phases of their lives. It composes an analogue gospel of a microcosm, which has consciously or unconsciously rejected the central, arrogant doctrine of human exceptionality.

Liis Nimik (1979) is a documentary flmmaker, fction editor and lecturer. She has edited 4 feature flms and worked together with the renowned director Veiko Õunpuu on two features - “Free Range” (2013) and “Roukli” (2015). She has also edited the widely distributed festival hit “In the Crosswind” (2014), being also one of the authors of the original idea. Te recent documentary flms she produced - “Lembri Uudu”(2017), “Te Weight of All the Beauty” (2019) and “A Loss of Something Ever Felt” (2020) have all been international festival successes, having being premiered, shown and awarded in festivals like DocLeipzig, Sarajevo, HotDocs, Melbourne IFF, Jihlava, Bogota, Habana and Black Nights. “Te Weight of all the Beauty” participated in the Academy Award competition for short docs in 2021. Liis believes chance, curiosity and humor are the three most important components of life and keeps researching flm through this perspective. "Sundial" is her debut feature documentary as a director.

The film can be watched on streaming platforms Telia, Elisa, Arkaader.