Margit Lillak

Documentary director Margit Lillak graduated from the Estonian Academy of Art as a set designer in 1999 and went to work as director of animated films at the Multifilm studio In 2002 Margit graduated from the Royal Holloway College in England with a MA degree in screenwriting After that she started her collaboration with studio Allfilm She has directed several short documentaries out of which Pastacas was awarded with the main prize at the EstDocs Film Festival competition in Toronto In 2012 she directed her first featurelength documentary 402 weeks as a firstperson film about her own pregnancy and homebirth The Circle is her second featurelength film that follows a newly formed ecocommunity in Estonia starting from 2014 with blissful beginnings to their apocalyptic collapse in 2019 The film premiered at Jihlava IDFF 2019 It was also the opening film at Docpoint Tallinn in 2020 Then went to many international film festivals and screenings DocPoint Helsinki One World Human rights FFl Cineast festival in Luxembourg Docaviv festival in Iisrael Docs against Gravity Millenium festival in Brussels Artdoc festival in Riga and many special screening across Europe The film gained a lot of attention in Estonian media and was popular with domestic audiences The Circle and Margit received an annual prize for best documentary from the Estonian Cultural Endowment for extraordinary social depiction in a documentary The Circle was nominated for best documentary at the Estonian Film and television awards