A work in constant progress (and occasional regress).
Born:
October 18, 1939
Died:
May 13, 2017
Salme Poopuu (October 18, 1939 – May 13, 2017) was an Estonian filmmaker and actress. Poopuu's career in the film and television industry spanned nearly fifty years working in a variety of positions, such as an actress, production assistant, production manager, producer, assistant director and director. Salme Poopuu was born in the village of Rahtla on the island of Saaremaa to Alexander Theodor Poopuu and Triinu Poopuu (née Tamm). She was one of three siblings. At age nine the family moved to Kuressaare. Poopuu attended school in Kuressaare until age thirteen when the family moved to the town of Türi in Järva County where she completed her studies. After graduation, she attended the University of Tartu where she studied economic geography and demography. At university, she met students Peep Puks, Paul-Eerik Rummo and Kulle Raig, who were all interested in filmmaking. Poopuu began experimenting with an 8 mm film camera and the group would spend time filming one another. In 1969, Poopuu began work on the Madis Ojamaa directed music documentary Uksed as a production assistant. This would lead to a lengthy career in the film and television industry as a filmmaker, working on various productions as an actress, production assistant, production coordinator, production manager, producer, assistant director and director. From the early 1970s until 1996, she worked for Tallinnfilm in a number of positions. Afterward, she worked for Danish, Finnish, German and U.S. film production companies until 1998. From 1996 onward, she contributed to Estofilm, Exitfilm, RCE, Baltic Broadcast and Faama Film as a contracted project manager and an active film producer. During her lifetime, Poopuu worked as a filmmaker on over sixty television films and series and feature films. In addition to her career as a filmmaker, Poopuu has also worked as a film and television actress since the late 1960s. One of her first significant, albeit small, roles was in the 1972 Sulev Nõmmik comedy television film Noor pensionär (English: "A Young Retiree") for Eesti Telefilm. Poopuu would spend the next several decades appearing in often small roles in motion pictures, telefilms, and television series. She is possibly best remembered by younger audiences for her appearances in such television series as Kättemaksukontor, Köök and, particularly, in the role of Salme in the Ergo Kuld directed Kanal 2 teen comedy-drama series Ühikarotid from 2010 until 2012. In 2016, she appeared in a cameo role in the music video "Mind ei koti" by the Estonian rapper Azma. Salme Poopuu never married or had children. Beginning in her early 40s, she was in a relationship with a man that ended after fourteen years. She lived in Tallinn with a summer home in her childhood village of Rahtla on the island of Saaremaa. Poopuu was a longtime member of the Estonian Greens political party. She died in Tallinn at age 77.
Assistant Director:
1979 Nest of Winds
Producer:
1979 Nest of Winds
1992 Võlausaldajad
Production Assistant:
1979 Nest of Winds
1988 The Curse of Snake Valley
1992 Võlausaldajad
2003 Somnambulance
Production Manager:
1979 Nest of Winds
1988 The Curse of Snake Valley
1989 I'm Not a Tourist, I Live Here
1991 That Lost Road
1992 Võlausaldajad
1998 Georgica
2003 Somnambulance
Administration:
1991 Vivat, Naval Cadets!
Most data and links to images for the Movies section come from TheMovieDB (TMDB).
Additional data for Film Titles come from The Open Movie Database (OMDb).
At least one plug-in comes from IMDb.
Data are -- hey, it's a plural -- subject to the limitations of their sources. (For example, TMDB search results currently max out at 20.) I am limiting myself to free data sources for now. (No, a "free trial" is not free.)
While much of the above data are retrieved directly from outside APIs and other such sources, data from American Film Institute (AFI) and British Film Institute (BFI) were manually entered the old fashioned way into a MySQL database. Re BFI I took the following liberties:
Regarding profile removals and data corrections:
Filtering is applied here to film projects flagged as "adult" by TheMovieDB. Pending "popular demand" I am contemplating a login and profile system with preferences (such as whether to allow adult images to appear) and permissions (such as data entry).
Whereas the overall purpose of this website is to serve as a personal demo/portfolio/workshop of web and data skills, this Movies section is not meant to compete with or substitute for far more definitive movie websites.
Whether or not he still clings to an award which he won in 1986 as a film critic for his college's newspaper, Jeffrey Hartmann is not responsible for the texts of overviews and biographies supplied by external data sources.