By Reelika Virunurm in Life

Reelika Virunurm explores the story behind “Kati and me” – how an Estonian girl called “Kati” prompted a Canadian couple to visit Estonia, fall in love with the country, and make a short film about it – the film which has become an internet sensation in last few weeks.

It all started with Estonian World sharing the short film “Kati and me” – surprisingly the only film ever submitted to the Estonian film festival “EstDocs” in Toronto by two people of non-Estonian heritage. From EW it was picked up by Edward Lucas, who is known for his affinity towards Estonia, with president Toomas Hendrik Ilves and the Estonian, Canadian and Baltic media following. The film clip has already been viewed more than 50,000 times on YouTube. As one of Kati´s Canadian friends wrote to her after the tweet from the president: “Are there only like 30 people living in Estonia, or how does that happen? Seems suspicious…”

The Canadian couple Mike Dell and Kimberly Bagayawa, authors of the humorous short film, put together most of it just within five days. The idea had taken root when Kati was about to leave Canada, so they were determined to visit the country themselves. Since the video has gone viral, a lot of people have also been contacting them asking how Kati is doing and whether they are still friends. Since I´m lucky enough to know all the accomplices personally, I decided to tell their story. What lies behind this tale of Estonian-Canadian friendship? Who is Kati and what did she do to make her Canadian flatmates not only to fly thousands of kilometres to visit Estonia (and granny´s farmhouse), but also to make a film about their experience?..................................

Article http://estonianworld.com/life/...

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