Etudes

How far are you willing to go for someone you once loved? It is 1994, and Paul is visiting Estonia for the first time, travelling to Hiiumaa to see the former home of his grandmother Elsa. He uncovers a family history whose secrets reach back to some of the most turbulent years in Estonia’s history. In 1924, young Elsa leaves her home on Hiiumaa and her communist neighbour Vaino when the charismatic artist Markus Müller enters her life. Elsa chooses Markus and begins a new life in Tallinn. Twenty years later, in 1944, Elsa’s life collapses in the turmoil of war. Her marriage to Markus conceals dangerous secrets, and German officer Hans enters her life. The Chopin étude he plays on the piano accompanies a forbidden love as the world around them falls apart. When Elsa’s daughter Marta is captured by the returning Soviet army, Elsa’s past catches up with her. Her only chance to save her daughter is to turn to the man she left behind twenty years earlier. Vaino is now a Soviet officer—and her daughter’s fate is in his hands.