A still from In the Crosswind.
As Estonia prepares to mark the 30th anniversary of regaining its independence from Soviet rule Martti Helde’s In the Crosswind (Risttuules) is blowing onto U.S. screens to remind viewers of an especially egregious crime against humanity: The 80th anniversary of Joseph Stalin’s purported Baltic purge. Shortly after Crosswind’s rapturous opening depicting Erna and her husband Heldur enjoying an Estonian idyll at their countryside home, 40,000 people are deported from the Baltic Republics as part of Stalin’s alleged plot for ethnically cleansing Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, as titles in English inform us.