Chasing Unicorns: A hilarious new movie about Estonian entrepreneurs taking on the world
Yes, of course there’s a sauna scene.
Update:
Chasing Unicorns is now available to rent or buy online worldwide. If you are in the UK or USA then you can do that on Amazon here. And everywhere else in the world, you can do it directly from the studio here. These aren’t some kind of affiliate links, by the way. We just really love the movie and want to support them.
Estonia’s startup community is already famous around the world, not least for producing four ‘unicorn’ startups valued at more than $1 billion. That’s not bad for a country of just 1.3 million people.
Now though, Estonia’s startup community has finally made it to the big screen.
Chasing Unicorns (or ‘Ükssarvik’ in Estonian) is a hilarious new movie told from the perspective of Õie, a young woman from rural Estonia who stumbles into Tallinn’s startup scene before trying to take on the world with her own tech company.
The director, Rain Rannu, is himself an Estonian entrepreneur turned filmmaker and the movie is based on the real experiences of more than 30 Estonian entrepreneurs whose real life stories overlap with Õie’s fictional journey. The dog playing the role of a startup’s Chief Happiness Office really does that job in real life, for example, although for Pipedrive.
The movie was shot last summer in Estonia and California with many of the scenes taking place in Telliskivi, Tallinn’s creative hub, with slightly fictionalised versions of real people and places. Even former Prime Minister Taavi Rõivas, who oversaw much of the development of Estonia as a startup hub, pops up in the movie playing himself — although as someone now working in startup customer service after leaving politics.
Just like in the movie, the production of Chasing Unicorns was also financed through several rounds of investment, which Estonian entrepreneurs were keen to support.
Chasing Unicorns hopes to inspire more people to pursue their business ideas so 5,000 digital copies will be donated to high school students in Estonia and elsewhere around the world. The producers have also pledged to make the movie free to any school, teacher or student that wants to use it as a learning aid.
However, Chasing Unicorns also isn’t afraid to heavily poke fun at startup entrepreneurs and highlight the less than glamorous realities that they face. In one scene, Õie and her business partner are explaining their company to older relatives in the countryside and have to explain that they don’t make money because they are ‘a pre-revenue company’.
“So that’s something now is it?” the sceptical father responds.
Rain’s own startup that produced the movie is Tallifornia. They previously made ‘Chasing Ponies’, a movie about another type of work that is familiar to many Estonians — selling books door to door in the US. That movie can be watched online here.
Things get steamy
This is an Estonian Saunas blog (for our own startup that contributed to the movie and helps more people around the world enjoy Estonian saunas) so I have to mention that there is an excellent Estonian sauna scene in Chasing Unicorns.
We won’t spoil the story, but we can tell you a few behind-the-scenes details for anyone inspired to recreate the experience after seeing the movie. The sauna scene was filmed in a fire truck converted into a sauna, which belongs to Järva-Jaani Tuletõrje Selts, the firefighting society for the small town of Järva-Jaani in Järva County. The stunning scenes of the truck driving through the morning fog were shot in the vicinity of the town, while the cool-down in the bog took place at Kakerdaja raba where there’s a great spot you can run and jump into the water.
There are many factors to explain the success of Estonia’s startup community, but the sauna is arguably one of them. Over the years, it’s helped Estonian entrepreneurs with networking, teambuilding and — perhaps most importantly — staying sane and healthy through the stress of growing a company globally.
TransferWise, for example, which is one of Estonia’s real unicorns startups, has excellent saunas at its offices in Tallinn and London — and we’ll soon be featuring them on our blog so you can take a peek inside. Watch this space.
If you want to learn more about the sauna that stars in the movie then, coincidentally, we recently featured it on our Estonian Saunas YouTube channel during a visit to Rakvere’s sauna festival. You can watch us trying out the saunas of Järva-Jaani Tuletõrje Selts here.
About ‘Estonian Saunas’
Thanks for reading. The Estonian Saunas blog is run by Anni and Adam, explorers and exporters of Estonian saunas. If you look very closely, then you might spot our very brief appearance in the movie.
Our own startup, Estonian Saunas OÜ, contributed to the film’s crowdfunding so that means we can host our own special Chasing Unicorns cinema and sauna later this Thursday in Tallinn.
Buy your tickets here:
As we already sell Estonian saunas around the world to people interested in learning more about Estonia — and we absolutely love this movie — we are also in discussions about the possibility of stocking the movie for our own customers in future.
You can follow Estonian Saunas on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. There’s also a Facebook group for fans of Estonian saunas.
