Helga Merits

Helga Merits (b.1963) Helga Merits (b.1963) studied philosophy at the University of Amsterdam but later transitioned into journalism. For years, she served as a journalist for national radio in both Belgium and Holland, contributing to newspapers in both countries. Driven by a desire to visually capture the stories she reported, she shifted her focus to creating documentaries.

Her first film was about her refugee Estonian father, Kallis Paul (2007), for which she received the Theodor Luts prize. This was followed by Class of 1943 - Remember Us When We Are Gone (2012) about the fate of the boys who were forced to join the German army in 1943. While doing research for the film about the Estonian school class she made a film about the memories of a Jewish Polish-English man: Sam Freiman – Memories Of a Lost World (2010). In 2015 she finished The Story of the Baltic University, a film about a remarkable institute created in Hamburg in 1946 by refugees from the three Baltic countries. She was awarded the prestigious Baltic Unity Medal from the Baltic Assembly in 2017 for this film.

During the opening of the Boston Baltic Film Festival (BBFF) in 2018, Helga's film Coming Home Soon - The Refugee Children of Geislingen was showcased. The documentary was based on interviews with people who had lived as children from 1945-1950 in a southern German refugee camp, Geislingen, an Estonian assembly center where some 4,000 Estonians lived for more than five years.

The idea for The Paradox of Seabrook Farms was conceived in the lobby of Paramount Theater’s Bright Family Screening Room during discussions with locals who attended the screening of the Geislingen film.

It is with great excitement that we announce the pre-screening of The Paradox of Seabrook Farms at BBFF '24.