Ilmar Taska

Ilmar Taska (1953) is an Estonian film director and producer, and writer. Taska gained prominence as an international film and theatre figure, having emigrated to Sweden in 1978 and then on to the United States. He began writing in the second decade of the new millennium, publishing the autobiographical book Parem kui elu in 2011. It describes Taska’s life in Hollywood and working at the famous Twentieth Century Fox studios, but also includes short stories. In 2014, the literary magazine Looming recognised Taska’s short story Pobeda. The title refers to a popular car produced in the Soviet Union in the 1940s and 1950s, and Taska uses the same motif in his best-known literary work, his debut novel Pobeda 1946. The book looks at the effect the Iron Curtain has on people’s personal lives, with the reality of the Stalinist society clashing with the dreams of the people living in it.