The 30th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF), running from 6 to 22 November, has announced the films selected for its First Feature Competition, which showcases debut works by emerging filmmakers. This year’s competition includes 12 films from 19 countries, with nine of them being world premieres and three international premieres. Each film will be vying for the Best Debut Film Award, which includes a €5,000 grant from Tegos. The films were chosen from over 400 submissions received from 86 countries, bringing together a diverse range of stories from Europe, the United States, Iran, Israel, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Latin America. The competition’s curator, Malaika Bova, described the selection as a way to highlight PÖFF’s global reach while ensuring the films resonate emotionally with audiences. “The 12 selected films bring together wildly original stories, exciting debut directors, and standout acting talent,” she said. Among the European entries, Polish filmmaker Sonja Orlewicz-Zakrzewska’s Exotic follows a writer at a Polish seaside resort whose attempt to master pole dancing gradually becomes a deeper process of transformation and self-discovery. Gigi Betito’s Black Slaughter, a French-Israeli co-production, is set against the backdrop of the 1996 revelations concerning the disposal of blood donations from Ethiopian Jews. Danish filmmaker Nagieb Khaja makes his feature debut with Lionheart, inspired by a true story and centred on Luan, a 29-year-old former gang member attempting to leave behind both his criminal past and the neighbourhood in which he grew up. Lithuanian director Danielius Minkevičius’s Oblivion explores a fractured father-daughter relationship, as Maria secretly enters the life of the father she has never known. Other notable selections include Ray Panthaki’s In Starland, a drama-mystery-thriller starring Clarence Maclin as a 50-year-old small-town American who finds an unexpected sense of belonging among a group of young online influencers. Macedonian filmmaker Andrey Volkashin’s The Sweetness of Bitter Things is a rural drama about a withdrawn doctor whose carefully ordered life is disrupted when her caring for a wounded woman awakens her to a first love. Chabname Zariab’s When She Hears the Bells is set in Kabul as the Taliban take control of the city and follows a widow who discovers that a kitchen where she works is secretly being used as a Bacha Bazi house. Here is the complete list of selected titles for the First Feature Competition: Black Slaughter – Gigi Betito (France/Israel) White as Salt – Murat Eroğlu (Turkey) Lionheart – Nagieb Khaja (Denmark) Happy Ending – Atena Mahmoudi (Iran) Oblivion – Danielius Minkevičius (Lithuania) Exotic – Sonja Orlewicz-Zakrzewska (Poland) In Starland – Ray Panthaki (UK/USA) Status: Rejected – Vahn Leinard Pascual (Philippines) Princess – Christian Rojas (Ecuador/Mexico/Argentina/Peru/Bolivia) The Sweetness of Bitter Things – Andrey Volkashin (North Macedonia) Running Wild – Wang Yi-Ling (Taiwan) When She Hears the Bells – Chabname Zariab (France/Germany/Belgium)