Fiction, Slovakia, 1969, 95 mn, b/w, O/FS
by Dušan Hanák
with Václav Lohniský, Lucyna Winnická, Josef Abrhám
Lauko is on permanent sick leave from his job as a cook. He spends his new leisure time walking around his village reliving “unfinished stories written by life and time… a vision that reveals the world’s beauty, its strange, almost bizarre harmony, intertwined with ordinary street life. This complex and somber story is shot without dialogue, the pauses speak in its place…”
Lidova Demokracie, December 1970
“Despite the authenticity of many phenomena captured by the filmmaker and their documentary-like appearance, his aim was not to produce an objective inventory , but to zero in on the substance and causes of illness that affect individuals and societies.”
Andéj Obuch, Dialog July 1989
Fiction, France, 1962, 106mn, b/w, French (no subtitles)
by Jacques Rozier
with Jean-Claude Aimini, Yveline Cery, Stefania Sabatini
The amourous wanderings of Michel on the eve of shipping out for Algeria, his first foray into military service.
Fiction, Poland, 2010, 95 mn, Colour, O/FS
by Jacek Borcuch
with Mateusz Koścukiewicz, Jakub Gierszał, Mateusz Banasiuk
Each of us has gone through that nebulous period in our lives when we are no longer a child yet not quite an adult. It’s a period of many firsts: first glass of wine, first big disappointment, first revolt, first great love. A period full of hopes and dreams. For Janek and his friends, Poland’s big historical moment, the demonstrations, strikes and martial law — are just a backdrop to their own big moment of transition and youthful passions: music, sex and intense first love. But the bubble of self-absorption and self-discovery is not a shield from the harsh realities of the adult world, as Janek finds out.
Official Selection Oscar 2011;
Official Selection Sundance 2010;
Official Selection Bruxelles 2010
Fiction, Norway, 1969, 101mn, Colour, O/FS
by Arne Skouen
with Liv Ullmann, Wolf von Gersum, Per Oscarsson, Claes Gill, Georg Løkkeberg
Born in seventeenth-century Norway An-Magritt is the child of a rape. After her mother’s suicide, she is raised by her grandfather in the archaic society of rigidly masculine values. Brilliantly rendered by Liv Ullman.
Documentary, Slovakia, 1965, 14 mn, b/w, O/FS
by Dušan Hanák
Daily life of apprentice hairdressers as they prepare for their exams
in what was then Communist Czechoslovakia.
Documentary, Denmark, 2010, 100 mn, Colour, O/FS
by Janus Metz Petersen
Mads and Daniel, two young Danish recruits, leave for their first mission in Afghanistan, high on expectations. But once in the thick of it, they alternate between adolescent bravado, fear, alienation, and paranoïa.
Documentaire, Yougoslavie, 1959, 18’, Couleur, VOSTF
by Aleksandar Petrović
Un court-métrage sur la vie et l’oeuvre du peintre serbe Sava Sumanovic qui a vécu à Paris entre les deux guerres. Après son séjour à Montparnasse,i l vivait retranché dans sa solitude au coeur de la plaine pannonienne et a créé une oeuvre d’une valeur artistique inestimable. Il a été exécuté en 1942 et est resté méconnu en Europe…
Grand Prix festival de Pula (Yougoslavie) ;
Grand Prix de la ville de Tours
Fiction, Russia, 2010, 93 mn, Colour, O/FS
by Andrey Stempkovsky
with Vladislav Abashin, Olga Demidova, Nikita Emshanov, Aleksandr Plaksin, Darya Gracheva
A mother learns that her only son, who is in military service in a combat zone, has been declared Missing in Action.
Grand prix Festival Premiers Plans d’Angers, France, 2011 ;
Best premier film Festival des Films du Monde : FFM, Canada, 2010
Fiction, Norway, 2008, 115 mn, Colour, O/FS
by Erik Poppe
with Pål Sverre Valheim Hagen, Trine Dyrholm, Ellen Dorrit Petersen
After serving a long prison sentence for a crime he steadfastly denies committing, Jan Thomas, virtuoso organist, plays in an Oslo church. Sacred music is his redemption, but can it salve the wound of all the lost years?
Documentary, France, 2010, 82 mn, Colour / b/w, O/FS
by Pip Chodorov
In this film essay, Pip Chodorov examines the lives and work of such experimental luminaries as Hans Richter, Michael Snow, Peter Kubelka, Stan Brakhage and the godfather of the New American Cinema, Jonas Mekas. Unlike the MTV-ADD montage barrage that characterizes so many contemporary documentaries, the film does not hesitate to show extended clips of the actual films by the artists, immersing the viewer in their unique visual worlds and perspectives.
Fiction, Denmark, 1964, 116 mn, Colour, O/FS
by Carl Theodor Dreyer
with Nina Pens Rode, Bendt Rothe, Ebbe Rode, Baard Owe, Axel Strobye
After a successful career as a singer, Gertrude marries a man whose high-powered job is his life. When she decides to leave him to look for an ideal of pure and total love, she is not sure where to go or how to find it. Despite the difficulties her choice engenders, she knows it was the right one.
Documentary, Slovakia, 1972, 74 mn, b/w, O/FS)
by Dušan Hanák
Encounters with an older generation of rural Slovakians who respond to the question: what gives meaning to your life? Simple and profound truths from people who have kept a sense of what is essential in the face of physical hardship and solitude.
Fiction, Russia / France / Lithuania, 2010, 111 mn, Colour, O/FS
by Sharunas Bartas
with Sharunas Bartas, Klavdia Korchounova
Genia’s business dealings with the Russian mafia in Lithuania are becomuing more and more complicated. His plan is to leave for the West with his girlfriend, but decides to make a quick trip to Moscow to pick up the money he is owed. There he visits his longtime mistress, a beautiful call girl, Sasha who is in love with him. His efforts to get paid lead to ever more menacing engagements with local hoods, until he ends up committing a double murder. On the run with Sasha, he must also protect his Lithuanian lover from the long hand of the mafia. A suspenseful, lyrical and unsentimental film of great humanity.
Grand prix Festival du cinéma de la CEI,
Estonie, Lettonie et Lituanie “Kinoshock”, Russie, 2010;
Sélection officielle Berlin 2010
Fiction, Yugoslavia, 1968, 75 mn, b/w, O/FS
by Dušan Makavejev
with Dragoljub Aleksic, Bratoljub Gligorijevic, Vera Jovanovic
A virtuous young girl is saved in extremis by her significant other.
Silver Bear, Berlin 1968
Fiction, Norway, 2003, 92 mn, Colour, O/FS
by Bent Hamer
with Joachim Calmeyer, Tomas Norström, Reine Brynolfsson, Bjørn Floberg
A group of Swedish observers studies the habits of Norwegian bachelors in their culinary habitat.
Fiction, France, 1964, 100 mn, b/w, French / no subtitles
by Paula Delsol
with Jacqueline Vandal, Lucien Barjon, Paulette Dubost
Jacquie, 20 years old, has decided to grab whatever life can give her. She leaves her native southern France to taste the excitement of Paris. But her family is not amused.
Fiction, Russia, 2010, 110 mn, Colour, O/FS
by Alekseï Outchitel
with Aleksandr Bachirov, Vladas Bagdonas, Serguei Garmach, Viatcheslav Krikounov
The main story takes place in 1945, just after end of the Second World War, in a small settlement in Siberia. Former servicemen and concentration camp prisoners work there as drivers of the fast steam locomotives that haul timber. They organize races among themselves, and now that the fighting is over, these races seem to them to be their only chance to demonstrate to themselves, and to others, their right to be a winner, to be human and to love and be loved. However, where a woman’s love is at stake, neither races, nor steam engines, will decide the outcome.
Documentary, Slovakia, 1967, 11 mn, b/w, O/FS
by Dušan Hanák
A traditional mass filmed in the Spisska Sobota church.
Fiction, Russia, 2003, 90 mn, Colour, O/FS
by Alekseï Outchitel
with Irina Pegova, Pavel Barchak, Evgueni Tsyganov, Evgueni Grichkobets
A seductive twenty-year-old girl strolls along the streets of St. Petersburg. She encounters a young man, who is attracted to her. He introduces her to his friend whom she seems to quite like. Along their way they laugh and make fun of each other and the passers by. The boys are in for a surprise when later that evening the three of them meet the girl’s wealthy friend.
Fiction, Portugal, 2009, 127 mn, Colour, O/FS
by Eugène Green
with Leonor Baldaque, Ana Moreira , Beatriz Batarda
A young French actress arrives in Lisbon for a film shoot. While waiting for the shoot to start she visits the city where her mother was born, observing its people and wondering about her future and her place in the world. After becoming fascinated with a young nun who prays through the night in the local chapel, she meets a young boy who seems to belong nowhere. Eventually she makes a decision that gives purpose to her life.
Fiction, Poland, 2000, 91 mn, Colour, O/FS
by Krzysztof Zanussi
with Zbigniew Zapasiewicz, Krystyna Janda, Tadeusz Bradecki, Pawel Okraska
The 60-year-old doctor Tomasz Berg discovers that he is suffering from terminal cancer. As a rationalist and cynic who is disappointed with life, Tomasz now finds himself grappling with mystical-philosophical issues he had previously avoided.
Documentary, Hungary, 2004, 82 mn, Colour, O/ES
by Zsigmond Gábor Papp
This darkly ironic historical documentary The Life of an Agent stitches together a compilation of instructional films used in Cold War Hungary to train secret government police. Papp uses much screen time to draw striking aesthetic, stylistic and thematic parallels between those works and the Z-grade, cliché-ridden fictional thrillers of the day, thus demonstrating how the Hungarian government modeled its propaganda on the conventions of popular cinema.
Fiction, Austria / Germany, 2010, 97 mn, Colour, O/FS
by Benjamin Heisenberg
with Andreas Lust, Franziska Weisz, Markus Schleinzer
The true story of Johann Rattenberger, marathon medalist and serial bank robber.
Official Selection Berlinale 2010
Fiction, Russia, 2010, 75 mn, Colour, O/FS
by Aleksei Fedorchenko
with Youlia Aoug, Igor Sergueev, Viktor Soukhoroukov, Youri Tsourilo
On the death of his wife Tanya, Miron aspires one last journey with his beloved respecting the ritual Meria, an ancient tribe whose traditional Russian perdurent.Accompagne his best friend Aist, they travel to Russia. As is customary, Miron shares with his friend’s most intimate memories of his life conjugale.Mais beside the sacred lake on the banks of which they say goodbye to Tanya Miron realizes he was not the one has to love…
Documentary, Russia / Uzbekistan, 2010, 80 mn, Colour, O/FS
by Amanda Pope, Tchavdar Georgiev
The Desert of Forbidden Art tells the incredible story of how a treasure trove of banned Soviet art worth millions of dollars was stashed in a far-off desert of Uzbekistan, and develops into a larger exploration of how art survives in times of oppression. A fascinating documentary about a group of visionary artists and one man who risked his life to rescue their work.
Program UNAFF Traveling Film Festival 2010: www.unaff.org
Fiction, Czechoslovakia, 1963, 90 mn, b/w, O/FS
by Štefan Uher
with Marian Bielik, Jan Belakova
Fajolo, a student who directs quasi-existentialist verbal abuse at his girlfriend Bela, takes off to a formally – volunteer summer work camp at a farm, actually mandated by the authorities, which inspires both him and Bela to start a relationship with someone else.
Fiction, Russia / France, 2010, 91 mn, Colour, O/FS
by Alexandre Rogojkine
with Vassili Domratchev, Sergueï Issavine, Alekseï Polouian, Igor Sergueev, Mikhaïl Wasserbaum
A look into the life and mind of an executioner in the service of the revolution. He is methodical and conscientious in his work. A chillingly human portrait.
Un Certain Regard, Cannes 1992
Fiction, France / Greenland, 2010, 90 mn, Colour, O/FS
by Mike Magidson
with Ole Jørgen Hammeken, Gaba Petersen, Rebekka Jørgensen, Sara Lyberth
Inuk, a teenager of the minority Greenland culture in Denmark, is taken from nd drunken violence-ridden family to a children’s home in the Great North where fast-food hangouts and video-games are replaced by bear-hunting and ice-fishing and love is tough but real.
Haskell Wexler prix Woodstock 2010
Fiction, Slovakia, 1967, 95 mn, b/w, O/FS
by Juraj Jakubisko
with Jirí Sýkora, Jana Stehnová, Vlado Müller
Andrej and Juraj are brothers. Andrej is a military pilot, Juraj is an artist, a dreamer. One day on a visit to his brother, Juraj jokingly suggests taking Andrej’s girlfriend Jana away with him.
Grand Prix, Manhattan Festival 1967
Fiction, Finland, 1962, 116 mn, b/w, O/FS
by Mikko Niskanen
with Pentti Tarkiainen, Matti Loiri, Uti Saurio, Hannu Vironmäki
Mikko Niskanen wrote and directed this film about life in Nazi-occupied Finland. The desultory effect of war is shown as it affects a group of young boys left alone while their parents fight the enemy. The boys run wild in lieu of the lack of parental direction and advice, showing war has many casualties that are not only on the front lines of battle.
Fiction, Russie, 1976, 111’, NB, VOSTF
by Larissa Chepitko
with Vladimir Gostioukhin, Boris Plotnikov, Lioudmila Poliakova, Anatoli Solonitsyne, Maria Vinogradova, Sergueï Yakovlev
During the Second World War, two Russian men are captured by the German occupier and forced to choose between collaboration and death. One of them chooses to live and collaborate, the other refuses to betray his country and so is put to death.
Based on the novel by Vassili Bykov, Ascension explores the multiple enigmas of the human spirit, its psychological complexity and the immortality of the soul of both a traitor and a hero.
“My film is a journey towards humanity, towards the destiny of the human being within these two characters,” Larissa Chepitko has said in an interview.
Aesthetically accomplished in its provocative use of black and white and with a dramatic score by Schnitke.
Golden Bear — Berlin 1977
Fiction, Germany / USA, 1977, 120 mn, Colour, O/FS
by Ingmar Bergman
with David Carradine, Liv Ullmann, Heinz Bennent, Gert Froebe
Abel Rosenberg, an unemployed acrobat in 1923 Berlin, hears of his brother and fellow performer’s suicide.
Documentary, Slovakia, 2009, 65 mn, Colour, O/FS
by Marko Skop
The village of Osadne is located near the Eastern border of Slovakia where nearly all the inhabitants are Rusyns, a Slavic ethnic group that speaks its own language and has few present day survivors. As the local population ages, Osadne’s future is in doubt. With this in mind, Soroka, mayor Ladislav Mikulasko (who has headed up the local government for more than thirty-five years) and local booster Fedor Vico are eager to create a tourist attraction to lure visitors to the town. The three travel to Belgium in hopes of raising money to establish some sort of Rusyn memorial in Osadne, but dealing with bureaucracy in Brussels is more complicated than they expected.
Fiction, Hungary, 1966, 98 mn, O/FS
by István Szabó
with András Bálint, Miklós Gábor, Dániel Erdély
This movie, directed by Istvan Szabo, tells of a boy who creates romanticized memories of his father, dead since the boy was a child in 1945. The “memory” of the father, actually a mild, decent, but undistinguished physician, sustains the lad as a crutch. It is only when the boy becomes a young man involved in the Hungarian uprising of 1956 and when he falls in love with a Jewish girl that he realizes that he must forge his own identity without reflecting the “glory” of his father.
Fiction, Czech Republic, 2010, 146 mn, Coulour, O/FS
by Radim Špaček
with Ondřej Malý, Martin Finger, Kristína Farkašová, Luboš Veselý, Lukáš Latinák
An unimpeachably professional secret police agent is seized by doubt when he falls in love with a young free-thinker.
Fiction, Hungary, 1971, 88 mn, Colour, O/FS
by Miklós Jancsó
with Andrea Ajtony, András Ambrus, Lajos Balázsovits, András Bálint
In 19th century Hungary, the peasants who toil on the land of the gentry are moved by stirrings of revolution elsewhere.
Best Screenplay, Cannes 1972
Documentary, Finland, 2010, 84 mn, Colour, O/FS
by Joonas Neuvonen
Aimless but not humourless youths in Lapland revisited by an escapee. As tough and possibly more hilarious than Trainspotting.
Critics’ Week Prize, Locarno 2010 ;
Official Selection Stockholm 2010 ;
Official Selection Zurich 2010
Documentary, Lithuania, 1972, 82 mn, Colour / b/w, O/FS
by Jonas Mekas
The founder of the Anthology Film Archive, Jonas Mekas came to the United States in 1949. Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania is a three-part condensed loose narrative of his life so far. Part One is a montage of short films shot between 1950 and 1953 in his new country; Part Two consists of images from a trip to Lithuania in 1972 and the third part starts with a detour to Elmshorn, a suburb of Hamburg where his family was held in a forced labour camp during the war.
His return to his native Lithuania in 1972 was a chance for him to revisit the places that marked his early life and reminiscence with descendants of relatives left behind half a century ago.
Documentary, Russia, 2009, 140, Colour, O/FS
by Igor Mayboroda
The detective story of “Rerberg and Tarkovsky. The Reverse Side of “Stalker” is based on previously unknown factual material discovered during the making of the film, so the viewer will be in for many surprises. However, the real point of the film is not to uncover the story of dramatic conflict, which took place between Georgi Rerberg and Andrei Tarkovsky, but to call the viewer’s attention to a great “passed personalities” of Andrei Tarkovsky, Georgi Rerberg, Victor Astafiev, Pavel Lebeshev, Sven Nykvist.
Best documentary Prix NIKA, Russia 2010;
Best documentary Prix Golden Eagle, Russia 2010
Fiction, Slovakia, 1979, 81 mn, O/FS
by Dušan Hanák
with Juraj Nvota, Iva Bittova, Josef Hlinomaz, Marie Motlova
Jakub, a dreamy mail carrier in a sleepy village, spends his days playing pranks on everyone, resenting his father with his mother’s tacit support, and admiring Jolana from the neighboring Romani hamlet — until Jolana responds. Faced with mistrust from both Jakub’s and Jolana’s families and venom from segments of their communities, Jakub pulls one more, grave prank that, he imagines, will help support the two teenagers as they take the train to the nearby city in order to live together.
Fiction, Slovenia / Macedonia / Serbia / Croatia / Bosnia, 2010, 114 mn, Colour, O/FS
by Dzidzeva, Juka, Rossi, Slak, Tanović
Real life is not just made of our plans for happiness, but precisely the things that oppose to our plans and intentions. Things that happen by accident, completely unpredictable and sometimes causing disappointment and pain. Besides pregnancy and anticipation of a new life, these stories are linked by coincidental events that violate the plans and change lives. These are the stories of love and hope, revenge, sacrifice, defiance, the system, and we find their characters already in „some other stories“, bringing a different perspective.
Documentaire, Yougoslavie, 1934, 84’, NB, VOSTF
by Miodrag Djordjevic
Originally made as a promotional travelogue to show the varied and sumptuous landscapes of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, this film from the period between the two world wars goes beyond straightforward documentary. Bearing the unmistakable mark of one of Yugoslavia’s most prolific and accomplished filmmakers, Under the Yugoslavian Sky is a tapestry of the multiple cultural traditions of the various regions. The full measure of contrasting temperaments and styles–mountainous and Mediterranean, urban and rural, western and eastern-influenced, comes through in the panoramic views as much as in the candid glimpses of the daily lives of its people as well as events like the rally of the ‘Sokols’” sporting association (125 years old this year).
Today, the film takes on a nostalgic overlay in its optimistic promotion of pan-Slavism and the young Yugoslav nation. It also contains the only sound film segment of King Alexander of Yugoslavia. A treasure of the Yugoslav national Cinematheque whose historical value is matched by its poignancy.
Fiction, USSR, 1979, 163 nmn, Colour, O/FS
by Andreï Tarkovski
with Alexander Kaidanovsky, Anatoli Solonitsyne, Nikolai Grinko
Stalker is a man charged with guiding two men, Writer and Professor, within the heavily-guarded Zone to a Room that holds the power to grant one wish to anyone who enters.
Fiction, Germany / Hungary / France, 2010, 105 mn, Colour, O/FS
by Kornél Mundruczó
with Rudolf Frecska, Kitty Csikos, Lili Monori, Miklós Székely B., Kornél Mundruczó
Rudi, a 17 year-old boy with a past—several stints in reform school—and without one—never knew his father—returns to his village filled with hope for the future. Rejected by his family, he finds himself wanted for murder after a terrible incident. The father he never knew turns out to be his only hope of redemption.
Official Competition Cannes 2010 ;
Best director, Best operator Seville 2010 ;
Jury’s prize, Sarajevo 2010
Fiction, Serbia/Netherlands, 2010, 99 mn, Colour, O/FS
by Nikola Ležaić
with Marko Todorović, Stefan Djordjević, Dunja Kovačević
Two friends, Toda and Stefan, spend the summer after high school roller-blading in the abandoned Bor copper mine, once the biggest and most prosperous in Europe.
Best film Sarajevo 2010 ;
Best film Estoril 2010
Fiction, Hungary, 2010, 107 mn, Colour, O/FS
by Benedek Fliegauf
with Eva Green, Matt Smith
In this movie, Eva Green plays Rebecca, a woman re-united with her childhood love Tommy. When Tommy is tragically killed, Rebecca makes a fateful decision that will have Freudians intrigued: she allows herself to become pregnant with Tommy’s clone, thereby becoming mother to her lover…
