Elmo Nüganen

Elmo Nüganen

Born: February 15, 1962
in Jõhvi, Estonia
Elmo Nüganen (born February 15, 1962 in Jõhvi) is an Estonian theatre director, film director, and actor.

He has been the artistic director of the Tallinn City Theatre since 1992. He was a graduate of the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre in 1988 and then a professor at the academy in 1998–2002 and 2008–2012. He directed the war films Names in Marble from 2002 and 1944 from 2015. Names in Marble was seen by more than 168,000 people in Estonia and was selected for the 2003 Taormina Film Fest, while 1944 had the highest opening-week audience numbers in Estonian film history and became the country's submission for the Academy Awards.

Nüganen has received multiple awards for his work in theatre, including the Estonian Annual Theatre Award for Best Director in 1992, 1995, 2000, 2007, and 2010, and the Estonian National Cultural Award in 1996, 1999, and 2009.

Movies for Elmo Nüganen...

Conversation
Title: Conversation
Released: November 14, 2022
Type: Movie
The Old Woman lives in a deep Estonian forest, alone and isolated. Her parents came here to settle to raise and educate their children in the right way. They all died long ago. The Old Woman leads her farm, until one day her world almost collapses due to the intrusion of a lost stranger.
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Dawn of War
Title: Dawn of War
Character: Major Kurg
Released: October 6, 2020
Type: Movie
A historical spy-thriller set in 1939 about an Estonian intelligence agent tasked with uncovering the Soviet double agent in their ranks.
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Portugal
Title: Portugal
Character: Boss
Released: April 12, 2018
Type: Movie
Karina and Martin are in a pleasent relation where everyday life flows in an effortlessly accustomed way and no small misbehaviours can shake it’s rush. Life is good. Perhaps it’s this perfection and frequent patterns that make them finally pose a question – is everything to be expected in life? This is a story about following the yearning of your soul. Longing for something other than the present and having the courage to be deliberately lost.
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Title: Lotte's Stories
Character: Lotte's Grandfather
Released: October 17, 2017
Type: TV
Lotte together with her friends Bruno and Albert, ventures and solves exciting detective puzzles.
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August välja
Title: August välja
Character: Himself
Released: January 8, 2014
Type: Movie
A short film about an old actress Leida Rammo who tries to complete an unfinished theatre house project.
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Tangerines
Title: Tangerines
Character: Margus
Released: October 16, 2013
Type: Movie
War in Abkhazia, 1992. An Estonian man Ivo has stayed behind to harvest his crops of tangerines. In a bloody conflict at his door, a wounded man is left behind, and Ivo is forced to take him in.
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Demons
Title: Demons
Character: Stranger
Released: November 9, 2012
Type: Movie
When Joko, Ants and Reeda, all in their own good reasons, first enter a casino, they can't possibly be aware of the very existence of the demons inside them. Soon enough, they will know. But then it is already too late and their lives are suddenly caught in a fatal vortex.
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Mushrooming
Title: Mushrooming
Character: Gas Station Attendant
Released: September 21, 2012
Type: Movie
Politician Aadu Kägu goes to the mushroom forest with his wife Viivi to rest his nerves from the reputation campaign. They are joined by a voter, penniless rock star Zäk. In order to avoid common mushroom forests, they drive to some countryside at random. Soon the trio discovers that they are lost, at the same time a media scandal breaks out - the investigative press suspects that Kägu has misused state money. The fight for honor, life and death begins, both in the forest and in the city.
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Purge
Title: Purge
Character: Father
Released: September 7, 2012
Type: Movie
Aliide experienced The Great Terror under Stalin’s regime, and decades after her hometown people were deported to Siberia, she lives alone in an isolated house. One night, she finds a young woman in her yard – Zara has just escaped from the claws of the Russian mafia that held her as a sex slave. Survivors both, Aliide and Zara engage in unearthing each other’s motives and gradually, and their stories merge into one, revealing the tragedy of a family during the cruelest years in Estonian history.
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Names in Marble
Title: Names in Marble
Character: Armored Train Commander
Released: November 1, 2002
Type: Movie
Based on an acclaimed 1935 novel about the War of Liberation (1918-1920) that ensured Estonia's independence, the film tells about a group of young schoolboys heading to the front to fight the army of Soviet Russia.
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Love for Three Oranges
Title: Love for Three Oranges
Character: Pantalone
Released: September 12, 1994
Type: Movie
"Love for Three Oranges" is the first play by Carlo Gozzi (December 13, 1720 - April 4, 1806). He wrote it in 1761. The play is based on a parody of the fairy tale "Love Against Three Oranges". It was originally written as canovaccio (the explanation of the content on which commedia dell'arte actors improvise the text), but later Gozzi also added some dialogue instructions and critical explanations.
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Marraskuun harmaa valo
Title: Marraskuun harmaa valo
Character: Tõnu Valjus
Released: April 23, 1993
Type: Movie
Kari Syysmäki, a Finnish Businessman is on a vacation with his wife in Tallinn. When his wife is away a young man enters their hotel room with a gun. He tells to the businessman that he has just tried to rob a bank, but accidentally shot one of the clerks. Now he's hiding from the cops. But when the bank robber forgets his gun on the table, Syysmäki grabs it and shoots him in the back. After that Syysmäki refuses to travel back to Finland with his wife. He stays in Tallinn and soon he's about to face both the cops and the mob of Estonia.
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Prompter
Title: Prompter
Character: Robert
Released: April 19, 1993
Type: Movie
The last film directed by Kaljo Kiisk has been dedicated to theatre and the people in theatre. You are entering the hectic world of musicians, zanies and jesters - and don't expect to hear a symphony but a single delicate sound of a flute.
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For Crazies Only
Title: For Crazies Only
Released: February 18, 1991
Type: Movie
A young man is taken to a small town hospital after a suicide attempt. Rita is a beautiful married Russian nurse taking care of him.
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Ainus pühapäev
Title: Ainus pühapäev
Released: January 1, 1990
Type: Movie