Estonia’s official submission for the ‘Best International Feature’ category at the 94th Academy Awards is Peeter Simm‘s On the Water, which competed in the 2020 Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival. In anticipation of For Your Consideration screenings, I had the opportunity to converse with Simm, long considered one of Estonia’s most esteemed directors. Regarding this adaptation of celebrated 2015 memoir by Olavi Ruitlane, we discuss the long process of whittling down the novel for a film feature, a coming-of-age tale set in early 80’s Estonia. We deliberate on Simm’s significant filmography, including his training at the famed Moscow State Institute of Cinematography (where alumni includes Tarkovsky and Konchalovsky, among many others), the inspiration of Soviet comedies and the irony of making a film set in a period in which it likely couldn’t have been filmed.