KEEL –language-
13 min.
2009
b&w
images: Eléonore de Montesquiou and archive images (Sillamäe television)
music: Liis Jürgens
original language: Estonian
subtitles: Russian or English
Riina Salak is an Estonian language teacher in a Russian kindergarten in a Russian area of Tallinn.
She explains how she teaches Estonian language to the Russian kids, or tries to teach them in a one-hour per week course.
She talks about language issues in Estonia - since language is either an integration tool or a handicap, it has always been socially and politically loaded because Estonia has been occupied first by the Germans, and then by the Russians, who each imposed their language on the population.
My film raises fundamental questions about displacement, integration into a new environment and education through relatively simple means, if they are respected in childhood.