Xue Ma's New Film Aroma Heads to Tallinn for Its World Premiere
Xue Ma's third feature film, Aroma, will have its world premiere on 16 November at the 30th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, known as PÖFF. The film will play in the festival's Rebels With a Cause competition section, according to The Hollywood Reporter, which has exclusively premiered the film's trailer.
Ma wrote and directed the film. It comes after her earlier features, White River and Sonata of Wave.
Jiali Zhao stars as Yang, and Weihao Xu plays Fang. Ze Ying and Lu Huang also appear in the cast. Ash Chen is the cinematographer, the person who shapes the camera work and the look of each frame. Maxime Pozzi-Garcia is the editor, who decides how the shots are cut together into the finished film.
A world premiere is the first public screening of a film anywhere. For a festival, it is a chance to show new work to local audiences and to the industry people who attend, including sales agents and buyers who decide which films reach cinemas and streaming services later on.
PÖFF is based at Telliskivi Creative City in Tallinn, its home since 2009. The festival opened at Tallinn's Alexela Concert Hall, where three Lifetime Achievement Awards were presented on opening night. Alongside the screenings, the festival is hosting the World Congress of Science & Factual Producers in Tallinn from 9 to 12 November 2026. Factual producers make non-fiction work, such as documentaries, for film and television.
Anyone wanting to see Aroma on its premiere date will have to be in Tallinn or follow the festival's coverage. The trailer, shown first by The Hollywood Reporter, gives the first look at the film ahead of its screening there.
