‘Mo Papa’ Director on Her Unscripted Drama About Inescapable Trauma and Trusting “Divine Impulse”

Up-and-coming Estonian writer-director Eeva Mägi (Mo Mamma, Who Am I Smiling for?) is on Thursday world premiering her new feature film, Mo Papa, an unscripted drama about the scars of childhood trauma and prison, kicking off the Critics’ Picks lineup at the 29th edition of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF) with a bold, raw, and emotional cinematic experience about trauma and our hopes of healing.

Mo Papa follows Eugen, 28, who has just been released from prison after serving 10 years for a tragic accident, in which he killed his younger brother. Haunted by a childhood “marked by abandonment and unresolved trauma,” he returns to a world that has moved on without him. His only social ties are his estranged father and two childhood friends he knows from an orphanage. Eugen looks for forgiveness and a second chance, but old wounds threaten to trap him in a cycle of self-destruction.