Aurora

How do you find your way home when all bridges have been burned?

Aurora, the daughter of a religious leader, travels with her husband Joonas to celebrate their wedding anniversary with their parents. At the same time, her ex-lover Lenny tries to contact her — something that does not go unnoticed by Joonas.

The anniversary celebration becomes a spectacle glorifying family values, as Aurora’s father, Valdek, carefully constructs an image of the ideal family model for his followers.

In parallel, a second timeline unfolds — the love story of Aurora and Lenny from a year earlier, where Lenny draws Aurora into his intoxicating and increasingly complicated world. When Aurora begins to see cracks in that relationship, she attempts to break away.

As past and present collide, unexpected confrontations threaten to unravel the carefully staged celebration. Long-buried secrets rise to the surface, and the façade of harmony begins to fracture.

Caught between loyalty, love, and control, Aurora must decide whether to submit to the life scripted for her — or reclaim her own voice.

RECOGNITION

The film was recognized during Estonian Cultural Endowment Annual Awards - award from the Audiovisual Arts Endowment Fund went to Johanna Mägi for the title role in the feature film Aurora.

DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT

“Aurora” isn’t an ideological film about ready solutions with clear, didactic points of view. Our goal is to observe people’s various psychological states and let the viewer decipher their different approaches.

“Aurora” shows love as a tragic chasm between an uncontrollable explosion of desire and love as an earthly, self-conscious decision. Aurora’s emotional and moral dilemma tears her apart between these two opposing forces. One side of her stamps her feet selfishly, screaming — I want it, I want it! But her willpower limits the extent of her desire, making it clear you shouldn’t chase after what you desire if it may destroy your life and cause torment to you and the people who matter to you.

Estonian writer Tõnu Õnnepalu has said that we live between boredom and pain. If everything in our lives seems to be in order, we secretly miss the rebellion, the destruction, the spontaneity — the big bang that brings back euphoric emotions hidden under layers of domestic bliss. Once we feel that real pain, we start missing our cocoon again. Stability and spontaneity, security and madness — these polar opposites are nearly impossible to combine.

Roland Barthes writes in A Lover’s Discourse: “The lover’s fatal identity is precisely this: I am the one who waits.” Love is one-sided communication, the longing for the unattainable. As Marcel Proust wrote, “It is our imagination that is responsible for love, not the other person.”

Love’s dialogue is always held alone.