“Life is beautiful,” says Sass to his friend Mati, a 70-year-old bibliophile in the movie A Friend of Mine , an Estonian drama, directed by Mart Kivastik. The film opened the Coimbatore chapter of the European film festival, brought to the city by Indo-Cine Appreciation Foundation (ICAF), Chennai and PSG Institute of Management. ICAF which screens about 500 films in a year from across various countries, and brings the cream of world cinema to film lovers across major cities in India, has plans to have a chapter in Coimbatore as well.
The festival, “Europe in Love”, has an enviable line-up of award-winning films that will be telecast till July 13. A friend of Mine takes you to the winding snow-capped mountain roads in the sunbathed countryside in Estonia. Mati spends his time in the library, and often reads to his bed-ridden wife. Mati’s life comes crashing down when his wife dies. The film is full of characters who love reading. There is the middle-aged single woman Ruth who works in the library with Mati for 22 years, and then there is Sass, an old man (who works in a hospital) and frequents the library to read newspapers. “I swallowed it in one night and felt so good,” he tells them after he reads Tolstoy’s War and Peace. The movie shows the bond the three friends share and how Sass brings about a gradual change in the life of Mati.
