Katrin Laur

Katrin Laur née Poola born April 29 1955 in Tartu Estonia is an author film director and professor who currently lives in Estonia and Germany In 1973 in Sovietoccupied Tallinn she graduated from a school that gave an excellent command of English Tallinn Secondary School N7 she then had different jobs Laur learned photography at the Tallinn Technical School N2 and studied philosophy for one year at the Moscow State University From 1977 to 1982 Laur studied feature film directing at the Moscow State Institute of Cinematography VGIK in the masterclass of Sergey Gerasimov and graduated in 1982 with a diploma summa cum laude diploma film Kolm tundi rongi väljumiseni Three Hours before the Train leaves After graduating from the film school she left the Soviet Union with her thenhusband a Colombian fellow student and their threeyearold daughter She applied for political asylum in Munich Germany which was granted to her two years later In Munich she again worked different jobs studied German at the Ludwig Maximilian University and made a couple of documentaries for the Bavarian TV 1987 Revolution aus dem Salon Revolution from a Salon about Russian female dissidents