Paul Keres. The King

When this film reached the editing table, the British newspaper The Guardian, which reaches thirty million readers, featured an article by renowned chess writer Leonard Barden, “Pride of Estonia: Paul Keres, one of the best to never hold chess world crown”. “Keres became a national hero for Estonians,” writes Leonard Barden, who believed that the Soviet authorities forced him to play badly at the 1948 World Championship tournament. Most of the professionals who appear in the film also agree with the theory that Paul Keres was influenced by the Soviet authorities. But some disagree.

The film crew went to Amsterdam and New York so that the great masters and chess writers Genna Sosonko and Andy Soltis could explain the mystery of Keres, who excites the chess world to this day. Experts Raul Rebane, Merike Rõtova, David Vseviov, Erik Terk and Joosep Grents also chime in. Kaido Külaots comments Keres’s losses to Botvinnik. In the film, we also meet the children of Paul and Harald Keres, who have not yet appeared in the media, Peeter Keres and Sirje Keevallik, and the chess player's namesake grandson, lawyer Paul Keres.

The film was given the motto by Genna Sosonko: “Paul Keres – Soviet citizen, Estonian pride.” What happened to Paul Keres in 1944-1948? This is also where the timeless theme of the film emerges – the collision of power and spirit. Specifically, Soviet power and spirit. The Soviet powers interrupted the spirit until the end.

The film’s music comes from the ballet “Paul Keres” by Timo Steiner and Sander Mölder. Keres is the only chess player in the world to have a ballet written after him, and he was the first chess player to be printed on a national banknote – the Estonian kroon.

The film's scriptwriters are Hannes Rumm and Eero Epner, who wrote the episodes of the secret visit by a high official of the NKVD to Paul Keres's apartment during the most anxious times of the 1940s.