The Last Relic

The Last Relic (1970)

Viimne reliikvia

A medieval love story with lots of adventures. The times are troubled - there's a revolt of peasants going on. To secure its safety a monastery chases for a relics of a holy Brigitte. A nobleman promises to get it if he gets beautiful Agnes as a reward. But she fells in love with a handsome adventurer. The monastery has to act shrewd now and play double game.

Date of release
1970-03-23
TMDB
6.4 / 10 (20)
Runtime
1h 26m
Genres
Adventure, History, Romance
Director
Grigori Kromanov

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Based on: Furst Gabriel or Last Days of the Pirita Monastery
  • Filmed in: Koguva, Zīle, Taevaskoja, Tallinn Old Town, Virtsu, Kuressaare Castle and 5 more

The Last Relic is a 1969 Estonian historical adventure film. It became one of the most popular films ever made in the country, and some critics have even called it "the only Estonian cult film".

Production

The movie is set during the Livonian War (1558-1583). A central plot device is the Pirita monastery, a real monastery dedicated to St. Brigitta. Currently, the monastery's original medieval buildings lie in ruins and are kept that way as a museum.

Scenes for the movie were recorded in Tallinn Old Town, passages of the Dominican monastery of Tallinn, Taevaskoja, as well as other places. A monastery set was built in Kukerand, near Virtsu. Several outdoors scenes were taken in Latvia, near the Gauja river. Indoors scenes were, among other places, taken in the fortress of Kuressaare and the Tallinn church of St. Nicholas.

A typical live action movie of the era had a standardised budget of 350,000 roubles. As a special case, the team of Viimne reliikvia managed to haggle themselves a budget of 750,000 roubles — more than double the customary. This lavishness paid off very well, as within the very first year, 772,000 tickets were sold in Estonia only.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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