‘Pretenders’’ Vallo Toomla Tempts Italian, Finnish, Lithuanian Partners with Estonian Sci-Fi Romance ‘Beatrice’ Ahead of Haugesund (EXCLUSIVE)

Estonia’s Vallo Toomla – whose debut “Pretenders,” penned by “Compartment No 9”’s Andris Feldmanis and Livia Ulman, wooed reviewers when it premiered at 2016’s San Sebastian – is due to start filming next spring his sophomore feature “Beatrice.” 

Set in a near-future devastated by climate change, the story of loss, love and hope will be pitched by Stellar Film’s pedigreed producer Evelin Penttilä (“The Exalted”) at the upcoming Nordic Co-Production Market in Haugesund, Norway.

Winner of the Trieste When East Meet West Lab’s Italian-Baltic co-development award in 2024, the project is co-produced by high-profile Giovanni Pompili for Kinoproduzioni, co-producer of the 2025 Palme d’Or entry “The History of Sound.” 

It has just attached two new European partners: the seasoned Finnish producer Aleksi Bardy (“The Summer Book,” “Tom of Finland”) of Oxymoron Imagination, and Lithuania’s Dagne Vildziunaite of Just a Moment, which collaborated with Stellar Film on Arte’s “Dance + City” series.

“I admire Estonian cinema for its imagination and innovation, which mirror the entire society. It is a privilege to try to help this great project happen,” said Bardy.
Pompili, for his part, said he was immediately taken by “Beatrice”’s “very powerful narrative force which explores the complexity of the global moment we are living.”

Written by Polish scribe Malgorzata Pilacinska with Toomla, “Beatrice” is set in a near future reshaped by climate change. The story turns on Kristi and Tom who are finally expecting a child, after years of trying. Alas, a tragic accident takes Kristi’s life. Months later, Tom agrees to a radical procedure: Kristi’s consciousness is implanted into a new body [Beatrice], reads the synopsis. Reunited in the shadow of loss, the couple struggles to rekindle intimacy, redefine love, and raise their daughter in a world where nothing feels the same.

Going back to the project’s inception, Toomla told Variety: “I feel a strong affinity and sympathy towards female characters who are out of sync with the world around them, just like Beatrice. My late mother was a highly intuitive, passionate woman who burned her candle too quickly. I often felt she was living in the wrong place, wrong body, wrong time, and surrounded by people who did not understand her.”

“The main feeling that the film should evoke in the viewer is recognition. We have all at some point, felt like strangers in our own bodies, in our own lives, in our own roles. At its core “Beatrice” is a delicate, tragic love story, but one that leaves room for hope,” he observed.

Stellar Film co-founder Johanna Maria Tamm highlighted the project’s urgent theme of climate change, forcing southern migration to Northern Europe. “When we started working on the project, it was a bit more dystopian but today this is not so ‘near future’ anymore. Climate migration is happening now! We feel strongly about this topic and so do our European partners,” said Tamm.
Casting is underway, with filming set to bow in the spring 2026.

So far, the project has secured support from the Estonian Film Institute, Estonian Cultural Endowment, Creative Europe Media, Friuli Venezia Giulia Film Commission and the Lithuanian Film Centre.
“Beatrice” is among six Baltic projects in development to be pitched at Haugesund as part of New Nordic Films‘ Baltic Focus.

Ten-year-old Stellar Film which attended the Locarno Pro networking and co-production forum Match Me! with “Beatrice” in 2023, has two other high-profile projects on its pipeline.

“At Your Service” from Student Academy-award winner German Golub (“My Dear Corpses”), penned by star writing duo Feldmanis and Ulman, is due to go into production next year; “Black Hairy Beast” by “Smoke Sauna Sisterhood”’s Anna Hints, currently in development, will mark Stellar Films’ fourth collaboration with the Sundance winning helmer after the shorts “Sauna Day” (co-helmed with Tushar Prakash), “For Tomorrow Paradise Arrives” and “The Weight of Light.”