The 6th Annual New York Baltic Film Festival (NYBFF) presented by Scandinavia House: The Nordic Center in America returns this November with the best new films from the Baltic region! This year’s lineup includes the Melchior the Apothecary film trilogy, based on Indrek Hargla’s bestselling Estonian historical mystery series. Screening virtually only from November 10-19, the second film in the series, Melchior the Apothecary: The Ghost, is based on the characters and events of Hargla’s Apothecary Melchior and the Ghost of Rataskaevu Street, with new and exciting twists and turns created from the film.
Elmo Nüganen’s film trilogy follows the apothecary Melchior Wakenstede (Märten Metsaviir) as he solves crimes in medieval Tallinn. In the second film, a night watchman is frightened by a terrible ghost — the tragically drowned daughter of a rich merchant. By the next morning, the guard has fallen to death from a high tower, and soon several more people lose their lives in suspicious accidents. Investigating these events, Melchior’s paths cross with a prostitute, a priest, a foreign artist and a mad heretic, as the clues take him to the Pirita Convent, which gloomy vaults hide a dangerous secret buried in oblivion. At the same time, Melchior is troubled by the question of why his beloved Keterlyn suddenly breaks their engagement…
This year’s lineup also includes a virtual-only screening of the first film in the trilogy, Melchior the Apothecary, as well as the North American Premiere of the third film in the series, Melchior the Apothecary, The Executioner’s Daughter, which will screen both in-person at Scandinavia House on November 11 and virtually from November 12-19.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Director Elmo Nüganen is an Estonian film and theatre director and actor. From 1992–2021, he was the artistic director of Tallinn City Theatre. His debut as a film director and screenwriter was Names in Marble in 2002 which held the number 1 title of admissions among Estonian films until 2016. Nüganen’s filmography also includes Mindless (2006) and 1944 (2015). The latter became the country’s submission for the Academy Awards in 2015. With the Melchior the Apothecary trilogy, Nüganen continues his theme of historic films, based on best-selling and internationally acclaimed novels written by Indrek Hargla.
