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ETUDE OF LIFE

By Mart SANDER, Eha URBSALU

Historical - Pre-Production 2023

A Wife, a Mother, a Lover, a Dreamer,
a never before told love story of an Estonian woman dealing with the ramifications of World War II.

- Year of production
- 2023
- Genres
- Historical, Romance, Drama
- Countries
- ESTONIA, USA
- Languages
- ENGLISH
- Budget
- 0.6 - 1 M$
- Duration
- 87 mn
- Director(s)
- Mart SANDER, Eha URBSALU
- Writer(s)
- Eha URBSALU
- Cast
- Eha URBSALU, Mart SANDER, Jasmin SELBERG, Merle PALMISTE, Triin LELLEP, Eve KIVI
- Producer(s)
- Eha URBSALU (EHA Enterprises, Inc)
- Synopsis
- The movie starts in New York City, in 1974, with a grandson looking back to learn about his family during the WWII. The movie gives a 100 year span of Estonia, once flourishing in the 1920’s and then fallen to the Soviet system in the end of WWII.
  Most of the story takes place over a two week period in fall of 1944 Tallinn, Estonia, when the Germans are forced out of the Baltics by the incoming Soviet army. The Rosenbaum family has lived their life of privilege as best as they could, continuing their small gatherings and soirees mostly isolated in the family and close friends’ circle. Even though the hardship they suffered at the hands of German occupiers, pales by comparison to the deprivation and persecution of the general population, they are nevertheless feeling the backlash of a foreign power's imposition on their culture and way of life. No matter that they try to hide behind the etiquette and walls of the abode, the now grim realities are setting in, that one monstrous power, that of the German army and SS, will be replaced by another no less grim one of the Russian communists.
  The story follows Elsa Rosenbaum’s unhappy marriage and struggles with her beautiful rebellious daughter Marta, while she does anything she can to remain in the illusionary bubble she has created.
  A hopeless romantic, Elsa easily falls for a German officer Hans, who plays Chopin on an old piano, and a promise of a real loving relationship materializes before Elsa’s eyes.
  Yet she is woken up by the reality of the war and when her daughter Marta is arrested with a young German soldier by the Soviet Communists. Elsa spans into action to save her daughter at all costs. Elsa has to choose: will she hurl herself headlong into a doomed relationship and escape in the hope of a new, better life, but give up everything and everyone she has known or will she give up hope of love and remain in her war torn home country to keep her family together in order to save her daughter?
- Partners & financing
- EHA Enterprises, Inc (US)
  Filministry (Estonia)
- Production schedule
- Summer 2022 and Summer to Fall 2023
- Beginning of shooting
- Jul 28, 2022
- End of shooting
- Oct 31, 2023