8 Views of Lake Biwa

Two girls are gazing at the shimmering Estonian lake that bears mysteries and perhaps even possesses a supernatural power to take or to save human lives. Soon those waters will bring a devastating disaster to their village. A calamity which will be followed by a chain of tragedies and adventures, all revolving around desire and love. 

Using the language of a poetic fairy tale, 8 Views of Lake Biwa offers a free flowing, meditative journey through borders and cultural differences – an almost therapeutic experience of reverie and relief. Inspired by the traditions of Japanese episodic storytelling and its iconic imagery, Marko Raat combines them with the sensibility of Baltic cultures. Though reserved, his mystical film is centred on passions and eroticism of an extremely high voltage.

In Raat's magical universe, you can cross a lake on the Russian-Estonian border and find yourself in faraway Japan. You can time travel and cross the lines between reality and fantasy without even noticing it. When everything is taken as part of the real, everything becomes one: life and death, men and nature, East and West. Distances disappear, while time meanders, bringing together the past, the present and the unknown. 

– Evgeny Gusyatinskiy