“Who are you then?”

"Colourful Dreams" is an extraordinary film in many ways. A visually and conceptually timeless masterpiece that shows through the eyes of five-year-old Kati (Katrin Zilinska), the possibility of a better and more natural way of life within the oppressive censorship of Soviet Estonia. Based on a simple children's film script, this nearly entirely improvised work has a range of meaningful interpretations that increase with each viewing as the creators managed to capture something so pure and candidly human, thereby completely confusing the artistic censors of the Soviet era. Prior to the premiere, the 60-minute film was discussed among various Tallinnfilm committee meetings for 54 hours altogether, to figure out how to manage a production which broke almost all the regulations set for Soviet films of that time by being ambiguous and carefree. In the end, "Colourful Dreams" was shown in local cinemas in April 1975 for just under a week.

The second collaboration between Virve Aruoja and Jaan Tooming takes place in the normative environment of a Mustamäe apartment block district and the inspiring summer landscape of Hiiumaa. As these two worlds collide in the midst of children cheerfully playing while Rein Maran's camerawork makes bold and experimental decisions and Arvo Pärt's hypnotic music takes the viewers into a dreamy realm that no Estonian film has ever achieved before or after. Avant-garde both in its time and even today, because it’s hardly common for Estonian films to use colours as characters in the storyline nor be overly experimental-improvisational. Jaan Tooming has written that "Colourful Dreams" only appears to be a simple children's film, but it contains a deeper message, and the child in it represents the soul of small nations. The film captures the essence of losing the childlike joy of playing, making mistakes, not being afraid of trial and error and despite everything trying again – that we are witnessing in a bureaucratic over-regulated welfare society. "Colourful Dreams " portrays at the same time a pursuit towards the best possible freedom and a control freak’s nightmare who does not get what they paid for but is rather made to doubt the surrounding reality.