Estonia-based film development and production company Tallifornia has launched the first private film investment fund in the country, with at least 15 equity investments in Estonian and foreign movie projects planned within the next four years.
Initiated by start-up entrepreneur Rain Rannu, the founder of mobile payments company Fortumo, the Tallifornia Film Fund is designed to work alongside existing public funding, tax credit and local film funding schemes and supplement them by adding an additional equity investment component to the mix.
The fund enables experienced filmmakers to supplement publicly funded film projects with equity financing and provide means for young and up-and-coming filmmakers to get financing for their first movie. “We finance ambitions and creatively interesting film projects that have a potential to reach wider than their home country,” Rannu, who sold Fortumo for $41 million in 2020, said in a statement.
The fund has already announced its first three investments: a sci-fi thriller “Sentinel”, set in a war-ravaged future, in which four soldiers man a remote ocean military base that separates two warring continents; “Invisible Fight”, a kung-fu comedy that takes place in an Orthodox monastery in the Soviet Union in the 1970s; and “Infinite Summer” that tells the story of three young women’s week at the beach that turns into a transhumanist mystery romp during a summer in Estonia.
The fund is entirely financed from private capital with participation from several Estonian investors.
Cover: A screenshot from “Kratt”, an Estonian movie produced by Tallifornia in 2020.
