19 April 2012 (BNS)

Estonian Culture Minister Rein Lang said that Estonia was hoping to get in the digitalized shape the originals of films made in Estonia.

Lang, who paid a visit to Russia last week, said at the government press conference on Monday that an archived films festival could be organized.

"Hopefully, it will be possible to digitalize the archived films' originals in the coursed of the festival," Lang said. A large proportion of the films made and shot in Estonia during the Soviet occupation period are kept in Russia.

"There are no other obstacles for getting the originals of Estonian films from the Russian side than the film archives, which is an extremely independent institution, has set a fee, wishing to get up to 1,000 dollars per minute for documentaries. We agreed that to avoid paying the fee we would organize a film festival archived films shot in Estonia and made by Estonians," Lang said.