Free Range / Ballad on Approving of the World (Free Range / Ballaad maailma heakskiitmisest)

Celebrating 20 years of bold and fabulous auteur cinema by Homeless Bob Production. We will continue our retrospective with Veiko Õunpuu's third feature length film "Free Range / Ballad on Approving of the World" that world premiered at 2014 Berlinale Film Festival.

Fred does not approve of this world. Why should he live here, driven by the same inexorable power that forces a blade of grass through the concrete? He loses his job at a newspaper because his review of Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life is peppered with monosyllabic expletives. Since the editor in chief is quite furious, he has to leave the office before he is able to retrieve his first novel from the photocopier. Back at home, his girlfriend Susanna reveals she’s pregnant. His fear of new responsibilities drives him into a deep crisis, and a dubious offer from the editor helps Fred realize that working as a writer would mean selling his soul. He thus decides to try manual labour. As a forklift driver, he slaloms his truck back and forth, artfully stacking containers into towers that grow as tall as a house, all the while filled with increasing despair at the meaninglessness of even the smallest gestures in this new world. Veiko Õunpuu’s third feature film was shot on 16 mm, with its riveting soundtrack recorded from vinyl, and is full of the same tremendous longing for freedom and independence in the here and now as the piercing, light-blue eyes of its hero.