In addition to other events, VEMU is focusing on three main themes in 2024: the 80th anniversary of the Mass Exodus, Tartu as the 2024 European Cultural Capital, and the year of cultural diversity.
As mentioned, cultural diversity will celebrated in Estonia upon initiative from the Estonian Ministry of Culture – the unique qualities of communities and cultures which contribute to the cultural diversity of Estonia. Everyone will work together in order to showcase and help bring cultural diversity to the forefront. There will be discovery and sharing, valuing and creation, preservation and enrichment of the cultural idiosyncrasies of communities and cultures through everything that unites people: starting from experiences and myths to creations and the future in day to day life and special occasions, in research projects and events. In keeping with the theme of the year of cultural diversity, VEMU has a whole slew events, lectures, concerts, EstoCast interviews, and more planned during the course of the year. Our latest collection campaign “My Many Lives. Being an Estonian in Multicultural Canada,” which kicked off in the end of 2023, continued into the new year. An exhibit featuring what was collected will be opened in March at Tartu College.
January tends to be a grey, dull, rather chilly month and so, to lift up spirits and brighten these days, we kicked off the new year with a film screening of the classic “The Master of Kõrboja” directed by Leida Laius. The film is based on Anton Hansen Tammsaare’s renowned novel of the same name and portrays the tragic love story of Villu, son of Katku farm, and Anna, daughter of Kõrboja farm. Villu is played by the famed Estonian actor Lembit Peterson, who we had the pleasure of speaking with and discussing the film via Zoom call post-screening.
Our language cafés or keelekohvikud continue to be popular and we are continuing with them bi-weekly as of the beginning of January. We have a truly great group of all ages and different ethnic backgrounds that enjoy learning about Estonian culture and language, and practicing their language skills.
Along with the language cafés, we continued with our fresh writing club from the beginning of January. Once a month, our group of enthusiastic writers meets and we discuss how to create inspiration for writing, how to go about writing autobiographies and memoirs, improve skills and more, under the guidance of seasoned writer Anne Remmel. Now that participants have tapped into their creative sides over the past few workshops, they’re focusing in on their long term writing goals and beginning to work towards them. Exciting times are ahead!
As mentioned earlier, the passing of 80 years since the Mass Exodus in 1944 from the homeland is a second major theme throughout the year. This tragic event in Estonian history left so many homeless, destroyed families, and shattered an entire nation that we are still trying to piece together. To commemorate this, we organized a mini-film festival on January 27th that resurrected the infamous EstDocs documentary festival name, and so our event was called PostEstDocs. The most recent board of EstDocs, led by Maimu Mölder (also the director of the first festival) passed the EstDocs brand on to VEMU in June of last year, along with their archives. VEMU has no plans to start organizing a full-fledged film festival since our program of events is already busy, but a small, thematically fitting mini-festival seemed appropriate in order to honour the leaders, volunteers and supporters of EstDocs who made this amazing festival happen for 15 years. We screened two doc films that told the stories of Estonians who had left their mark in Canada, the first being “Anna Kaljas: The Untold Story” (directed by Dwight Storring, 2023) and the second “Maestro Roman Toi: Beautiful Songs I Dedicate to You” (directed by Kalli Paakspuu, 2023). Both films had a great reception and we had a fantastic turnout. We had esteemed guests such as the Honourable Speaker of the Estonian Parliament Lauri Hussar, Estonian Ambassador to Canada Margus Rava, Head of Foreign Relations and Protocol Department of Estonia Toomas Kukk attend the festival. Post-screening discussions with the film directors were led by Kristi Sau-Doughty, who was one of the influential directors of EstDocs. Ellen Valter, yet another important director of EstDocs, announced that a new film festival titled “FILMIST” would be starting in March of this year.
On January 29th, VEMU partnered with Soundstreams to present a captivating discussion of Arvo Pärt’s music, titled “Arvo Pärt: Words and Music.” The event took place at Tartu College and featured Estonian-Canadian composer Omar Daniel leading a discussion along with famed author Anne Michaels and Soundstreams director Lawrence Cherney about the intersection of words and music in Pärt’s works. Live performances with counter tenor Dan Cabena and pianist Hyejin Kwon were peppered throughout the event. It was organized as a precursor to the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir concert that took place just a few days later on February 3rd, featuring esteemed conductor Tõnu Kaljuste and
presented by Soundstreams. It was a great success with every single seat filled in the hall! The performance took place at the unique and very fitting St. Paul’s Basilica, which was the perfect venue for performing Pärt’s music. The repertoire featured the works of Palestrina and Omar Daniel as well. The audience was buzzing and the sold-out event was fabulous. A post-concert reception to thank the musicians, partners and sponsors was organized by VEMU and Estonian Music Week (EMW), in partnership with the Estonian Embassy in Ottawa.
To finish off the month and take us into February, we organized a virtual quiz contest in honour of the Estonian Literary Day, which lasted from January 30th to February 4th.
Since Tartu College is VEMU’s home in Toronto, we, of course, keep following that theme as well. On February 11th, we had another film screening, this time more family oriented, of “The Secret Society of Souptown”, directed by Margus Paju and inspired by Mika Keränen’s children’s books, which takes place in the Souptown neighbourhood of Tartu. The premise of the film is the attacking of a town by a mystical virus that turns all of the grown-ups into children and how four brave 10 year olds fight back to save their loved ones despite all the obstacles. The event was also livestreamed and several local Estonian School students along with families attended and tuned in. We also had an interesting post-screening discussion with author Mika Keränen himself, a Finn who has lived in Tartu for years. And so, the film screening was also a celebration of the year of cultural diversity.
Just a few days later on February 14th, Mihkel Tombak presented a captivating lecture about Estonian entrepreneurs, specifically what this entrepreneurship is rooted in and what the results have been. The lecture concluded the introduction of Estonia’s digital development; Vabamu Museum of Occupations and Freedoms exhibition on this theme could be viewed until the end of February.
To commemorate Estonia’s 106th anniversary of independence, VEMU along with Estonian Central Council in Canada, Tartu College, and Korp! Vironia presented an formal evening event on February 23rd.
Entertainment was provided by young lõõtsamehed, concertina players Kert Krüsban and Mihkel Sildoja. Kert was named a Musician of the Year in 2022 in Estonia. Just as the month began with music, so it ended; Krüsban and Sildoja put on a fun concert for the local Estonian community on February 28th at Tartu College, presented by VEMU and Estonian Music Week.
And so, the cold winter weather is already coming to a close, the fresh spring is quickly approaching and along with it, an event-filled, busy season for VEMU is beginning. We look forward to seeing many of you at our events, lectures, concerts and more that we have coming up!