Oscars: Estonia Selects 'Take It or Leave It' for Foreign-Language Category

Liina Triskina-Vanhatalo's role-reversal drama, produced by Ivo Felt, is about a 30-year-old construction worker left holding a baby after his girlfriend gives birth and leaves.

Estonia has submitted Liina Triskina-Vanhatalo's feature debut, Take It or Leave It, for Oscar's best foreign-language film category.

An edgy and challenging drama about single parenthood, the film revolves around a 30-year-old construction worker, Erik, who is left literally holding the baby when his ex-girlfriend turns up on his doorstep with a child she is not ready to mother.

Through comical turns and universal crises of conscience and faith, Erik ends up becoming a father — and in the process transforms from a regular guy to a hero.

Reimo Sagor stars in his debut feature role in a film the national Oscar selection committee said "should speak to a wider audience than Estonia and Eastern Europe."

The film was produced by industry veteran Ivo Felt, who is responsible for two previous Estonian Oscar submissions, Tangerines (shortlisted in 2015) and The Fencer (in 2016).

Edith Sepp, head of the Estonian Film Institute, said: "The selection process gets more interesting year after year. Comparing the current situation to where we were a year ago, the biggest advance for Estonia is that we are now producing feature films of such different themes and our production capacity is quite high."