December Heat

DECEMBER HEAT is a lavish action-drama based on the attempted Communist takeover of Tallinn, Estonia on December 1, 1924. Tanel is a soldier whose new bride Anna is fed up with the misery in her country. She persuades Tanel to emigrate to Paris; but just as they are boarding the train out of the country, there's chaos in the streets. The Comintern is struggling to take over Tallinn's power points – government offices, the train station, the telegraph office – but the city's soldiers and populace fight back ferociously. Anna is taken hostage by the Bolshevik leader, a former friend from their student days. With men from both sides being massacred in a hail of bullets, Tanel is called upon to save his wife and his country's freedom. The outcome of the takeover of Tallinn hinges on a bit of 1920s technology, a communiqué that the Estonian Communists must send by telegraph to their Soviet comrades waiting for news on the other side of the border. You might recall that a series of Russian cyber-attacks against Estonian web sites crippled the nation's internet access in 2007. It seems the struggle for cross-border control of Estonia goes on. (In Estonian and Russian with subtitles) –B.B.