Priit Põldma to donate cultural award money to Fridays for Future

Estonian dramaturg Priit Põldma will donate the money from the 2026 President’s Award for Young Cultural Figures to Fridays for Future, ERR reported. He said he immediately felt he could not keep the prize money for himself.

President Alar Karis presented Põldma with the award on Wednesday.

Põldma said he learned about the award during rehearsals for a premiere in Viljandi. “It is a great joy and honour, because I had no idea this could happen to me,” he told ERR.

He said the news came during one of his busiest periods, when he was also trying to work out when he could travel to Tallinn to accept the award.

Põldma said recognition was important because it showed that the work he had done with friends and colleagues had reached someone and made an impression.

“None of us does our work for awards, but if what we do reaches someone, that is a very big thing,” he said.

He said his aim over the past decade had been to capture something about the feeling of being alive in the present. “If we occasionally manage to hit upon something, then things have gone extremely well. Most of the time, we miss the mark a little,” Põldma said.

The decision to donate the prize money came shortly after Rasmus Puur called to tell him about the award. Põldma said he immediately felt that he could not keep the money for himself.

“There are so many more important, necessary and painful issues at the moment that need much more money, and these are directly connected to whether culture can continue and whether we can do our work,” he said.

After receiving an unexpected sum of money, Põldma said his first impulse was to give it to an environmental organisation in order to highlight the close connection between culture, the environment and nature conservation.

After speaking with several people active in environmental work, he decided that it was most appropriate for the award for a young cultural figure to go to a youth environmental organisation.

Põldma said making a living as a cultural figure was difficult, adding that health insurance for freelance creative workers was essential. He said he had been fortunate to find work and receive support from the Cultural Endowment and other funds.

He also said the livelihood of creative workers, particularly freelancers, remained a major issue.

Põldma said he thought every day about the social problems he had raised in his award speech, including the direction in which society was heading and what would happen to the surrounding world. He said the continuation of both the physical world and natural environment, as well as the shared sphere of values, was a prerequisite for people to continue doing their work.