The "Toronto International Film Festival" has not had that much Estonian involvement over the twenty five years of its existence, but this year it has an Estonian involved promoting his very low budget production " Winter Roses " ( 2.5 million dolllars is very low budget since Mel Gibson's " Passion of the Christ " at 25 million dollars was considered low budget ). Bill Rebane came here from the States because he snagged Donald Sutherland as his lead in the film and in Canada that’s still a " bankable " commodity. He's looking for a distributor and some financing.
But there's another story attached to Rebane, one that needs to start a while back. He was born in Latvia of an Estonian father and a Latvian mother and landed in the USA via Germany when he was fifteen in 1951. He did his military service and became a good film cameraman in Chicago. He then also married and had children and decided Chicago was not the place to bring them up. In 1967 he moved the family half way up Wisconsin to Gleason where he set up a small studio and started doing contract work and eventually making low budget feature films.
At that point he never had the foggiest idea that in the same township was the first Estonian Lutheran Church in North America built in 1906 by a Rev. ( Pastor ) Hans (wait for it ) Rebane, no relation. It is even situated on Estonian Church Road on 4 acres of land with about nine gravesites. The wooden church itself is only thirty feet by twenty four but has a spire. By this time the church had gone to ruin and was being used by local kids for a hangout. The only remaining two old Estonian bachelors had died and that was the last of the local Estonians.
Filmaker Rebane ( we have to keep our Rebased apart if only for a while) didn't want such a signifigant piece of Estonian history to go to waste and launched an American version of " vacant possession " ( claiming abandoned property ) with Lincoln County. He believed he had that all tied down even after he acquired a mail order Reverend status to give his vacant possession extra push. He was hoping to visit Archbishop Udo Petersoo while he was here but he ran out of time. " I wouldn't mind an Estonian Passport in exchange for the church, " said Filmaker Reverend Rebane, with a smile.
" Actually the church belongs to the Bishopry, " said Archbishop Petersoo, adding, " Lincoln County contacted us about a year and a half ago and asked what we wanted to do with it. We had to take some responsibility over the grave sites and we accepted possession of the property. We are looking at ways to raise money to renovate the church. I'd be most delighted to speak to ( Filmaker/ Reverend ) Bill Rebane and discuss the matter. "
" I have no intention to fight with the Bishop, I'll be most delighted to talk with him. " said Bill Rebane before rushing off to another meeting.
End of story. For now.
