FM Review – A new serial of Estonian Television (ETV), The Class: Life After, won the main prize in the television serials programme at the 15th international festival Cinema Tous Ecrans on November 5.
The Estonian broadcasting company, ERR, told BNS that the producer of the serial, Gerda Kordemets, would receive the Reflet d’Or for the best series and the accompanying prize money of 5 000 francs Saturday in Geneva.
Kordemets’s joy about the main prize was great. “It is actually an exceptionally great achievement that a TV serial producer in Estonia was chosen as a competition entry of an international festival for the first time,” she said, adding that bearing in mind the very high-level competitors, she hadn’t hoped for any prize at all.
In addition to Estonia there were 15 series from England, the United States, Finland, Denmark, France, Canada and Brazil in the same category.
“I am glad that the serial is a worthy follower to the film Class,” Kordemets said with a reference to Ilmar Raag’s movie and expressed the hope that the prize would contribute to international distribution of the serial.
“No Estonian TV programme, because serials are specific TV programmes, have never earned such recognition before,” Raag told BNS. “Above all it is a great victory for ERR and Gerda Kordemets.”
Kordemets said that the two first episodes of the serial were shown at the festival, which is usual for such festivals.
The serial of seven episodes, which starts with the school shooting that Raag’s movie ended with, focuses on the recovery of the people and the society from the shock and moving on with their lives in the year after the event.
The script for the series was written by Margit Keerdo, who lives in Leeds, England, and has studied script-writing there. Besides Raag and Kordemets, other directors are Liina Paakspuu, Priit Valkna and Marek Miil.
The shooting of the last three episodes of the serial will start in March and the serial will be shown by ETV next fall.
