''Candles in the Dark'' is a 1993 American
made for television
A television film, alternatively known as a television movie, made-for-TV film/movie or TV film/movie, is a feature-length film that is produced and originally distributed by or to a television network, in contrast to theatrical films made for ...
Christmas
Christmas is an annual festival commemorating Nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus, Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people Observance of Christmas by country, around t ...
drama film
In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...
directed by
Maximilian Schell
Maximilian Schell (8 December 1930 – 1 February 2014) was an Austrian-born Swiss actor, who also wrote, directed and produced some of his own films. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for the 1961 American film ''Judgment at Nuremberg'', h ...
. Produced for
The Family Channel,
the film stars
Alyssa Milano
Alyssa Jayne Milano (born December 19, 1972) is an American actress. She has played Samantha Micelli in '' Who's the Boss?'', Jennifer Mancini in ''Melrose Place'', Phoebe Halliwell in ''Charmed'', Billie Cunningham in ''My Name Is Earl'', Savan ...
and
Chad Lowe
Charles Davis Lowe II (born January 15, 1968) is an American actor. He is the younger brother of actor Rob Lowe. He won an Emmy Award for his supporting role in '' Life Goes On'' as a young man living with HIV. He has had recurring roles on '' E ...
.
Plot
When her father thinks she is too spoiled, he sends Sylvia to her aunt in
Estonia
Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...
. She soon finds herself engulfed in a struggle with her father, and finds herself being hunted by the
KGB
The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...
. Meanwhile, after she meets Jaan, Sylvia immediately falls in love with him. Together, they fight to keep the Christmas spirit alive in the dark and old fashioned city.
Cast
*
Alyssa Milano
Alyssa Jayne Milano (born December 19, 1972) is an American actress. She has played Samantha Micelli in '' Who's the Boss?'', Jennifer Mancini in ''Melrose Place'', Phoebe Halliwell in ''Charmed'', Billie Cunningham in ''My Name Is Earl'', Savan ...
as Sylvia Velliste
*
Chad Lowe
Charles Davis Lowe II (born January 15, 1968) is an American actor. He is the younger brother of actor Rob Lowe. He won an Emmy Award for his supporting role in '' Life Goes On'' as a young man living with HIV. He has had recurring roles on '' E ...
as Jaan Toome
*
Natalya Andrejchenko
Natalya Eduardovna Andreychenko (russian: link=no, Ната́лья Эдуа́рдовна Андре́йченко; born May 3, 1956) is a Russian actress. Her most famous roles include the title character in ''Mary Poppins, Goodbye'' and Lyuba ...
as Marta Velliste
* as Pastor Harma
*
Maximilian Schell
Maximilian Schell (8 December 1930 – 1 February 2014) was an Austrian-born Swiss actor, who also wrote, directed and produced some of his own films. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for the 1961 American film ''Judgment at Nuremberg'', h ...
as Colonel Arkush
*
Aleksey Petrenko
Aleksei Vasilyevich Petrenko (russian: Алексей Васильевич Петренко; 26 March 1938 – 22 February 2017) was a Soviet and Russian film and stage actor. He played Grigori Rasputin in Elem Klimov's historical drama
'' Agony ...
*
Gita Ränk as Tiina
*
Helena Merzin
Helena Merzin-Tamm ( Merzin; born 7 May 1972 in Tartu) is an Estonian actress.
Helena Merzin was born in Tartu to actor Leonhard Merzin and Tiiu Lukk. She has two half-sisters from her father's previous marriages. In 1990, she graduated from Tar ...
as Natasha Omeltchenko
*
Lembit Ulfsak
Lembit Ulfsak (4 July 1947 – 22 March 2017) was a prominent Estonian stage and film actor. Ulfsak starred in the 2014 film ''Tangerines'' which was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 87th Academy Awards. It was also among the f ...
as Gospodin Omeltchenko
*
Mart Sander
Mart Sander (born 10 August 1967) is an Estonian singer, actor, director, author, artist, and television host.
Life and career
In his youth, Mart Sander studied violin and conducting. He started singing in the choir of the Estonian National Op ...
as the resistance fighter
*
Hendrik Toompere Sr.
*
Andres Puustusmaa
Andres Puustusmaa (born 19 July 1971) is an Estonian film director, actor, screenwriter, professor, and photographer who began his career in the early 1990s. He has worked extensively in his native Estonia, as well as in Russia.
Early life and e ...
*
Salme Reek
Salme Reek (10 November 1907 – 9 June 1996) was an Estonian stage, film, radio, and television actress and stage director whose career spanned nearly seventy years; sixty-six of which were spent as an actress at the Estonian Drama Theatre.
...
*
Elle Kull
Elle Kull (born 5 January 1952 in Haapsalu) is an Estonian actress and politician. She was a member of X Riigikogu.
She has been a member of Res Publica Party.
Selected filmography
*''Äratus'' (1989)
*'' Amber Wings'' (2003)
*'' Jade Warrior'' ...
*
Maria Avdjuško
Production
The film was shot between August and September 1993 on location with an Estonian crew, most of whom did not speak English.
According to the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'', this was the first non-Estonian film to be shot in Estonia.
Maximilian Schell
Maximilian Schell (8 December 1930 – 1 February 2014) was an Austrian-born Swiss actor, who also wrote, directed and produced some of his own films. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for the 1961 American film ''Judgment at Nuremberg'', h ...
looked back on production and the crew: "They would say 'yes' to everything. Sometimes it would fit and sometimes it wouldn't. Our time was very short with the sound and music, all of the coordination. It was a lot to do in such a short period of time."
The version aired on the Family Channel was not Schell's final cut. He planned on buying the film's rights to distribute a re-edited version overseas, but this never happened.
Reception
''Variety'' magazine wrote: "''Candles in the Dark'' is a sweet, endearing but safe story that occasionally suffers from low production values and muddled sub-characters but will no doubt make the family weep."
[''Variety'' magazine. December 3, 1993.]
See also
*
List of Christmas films
Many Christmas stories have been adapted to feature films and TV specials, and have been broadcast and repeated many times on television; since the popularization of home video in the 1980s, their many editions are sold and re-sold every year d ...
References
External links
*
1993 television films
1993 films
1990s Christmas drama films
American Christmas drama films
Films directed by Maximilian Schell
Films set in Estonia
Films shot in Estonia
Christmas television films
American drama television films
1990s English-language films
1990s American films
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