Documentary "THE STORY OF AN ICON. Pavel Varunin"

Director, cinematographer Maido Selgmäe

Producer Kairi Güsson, MTÜ Piiri Peal

2025, 56 min 

The documentary "The Story of an icon. Pavel Varunin" follows the work of icon maker Pavel Varunin in 2021-2023 - how wood-carved icons are created that end up in the church; this time in the Mustvee Old Believers' Church. In addition to the completion of the icon, the film takes a brief look at Varunin's other creative fields. 

Whether the film is more about the making of an icon or its creator is up to the viewer to decide. 

Pavel Varunin is an icon-maker, but also an illustrator, writer, heritage technologist. 

Pavel Varunin is the only icon master in Estonia today. He has created over 40 wood-carved relief icons. 

In addition, Varunin has illustrated more than 30 books with luboks, written 9 author's books, held solo exhibitions, presented at conferences on Old Believer cultural studies, and prepared over 200 hand-carved woodblock prints for fabric printing. 

In 2008, Pavel Varunin was awarded the Order of the White Star, V class, by the Republic of Estonia.

In 2019, Pavel Varunin received the Estonian Cultural Endowment's literary award for Russian-language authors.