‘Reviews’ Archives
Article Zero
Paragraf zero Poland, 1957, black and white, 16 minsIt says something for the social stigma associated with prostitution that this is apparently the only documentary of the 'black series' to tackle it. Very different in tone from Włodzimierz Borowik's rural Rocky Soil (Skalna ziemia, 1956), this is set in a far more enclosed series of urban [...]
Delta
Hungary, 2008, colour, 93 minsBy some distance the most sheerly beautiful film I saw in the 2006 Sarajevo Film Festival was the Croatian short Delta, directed by Stanislav Tomić - an almost wordless study of the lives of people who live and fish by the mouth of the Danube. Kornél Mundruczó’s feature has the same title, is set in a [...]
Autumn
Sonbahar Turkey/Germany, 2008, colour, 106 minsThere were two films playing in the 2008 Sarajevo Film Festival revolving around the subject of a recently released convict trying and largely failing to resume a normal life - the other was Thanos Anastopoulos' Correction (διόρθωση, Greece, 2007). Of the two, Özcan Alper's feature debut [...]
We’ve Never Been to Venice
Nikoli nisva šla v Benetke Slovenia, 2008, colour, 62 mins The only world premiere in the 2008 Sarajevo Film Festival competition, Blaž Kutin's debut feature was sadly also its biggest disappointment, a study of bereavement that offers so little dramatic meat to chew on that it barely sustains even 62 minutes. While it's unfortunate that [...]
The Fourth Man
Četvrti čovjek Serbia, 2007, colour, 107 mins Director: Dejan Zečević Screenplay: Dejan Zečević, Boban Jevtić Photography: Goran Volarević Editor: Marko Glušac Music: Nemanja Mosurović, Slobodan Negić Producers: Željko Mitrović, Slobodan Jocić, Dénes Szekeres, Nikolina Vučetić Production Company: Viktorija film Cast: [...]
Tractor, Love and Rock’n’Roll
Traktor, ljubav i rock'n'roll Slovenia/Bosnia-Herzegovina, 2008, colour, 105 mins Boasting not just the most self-parodically ‘Eastern European’ title of anything playing in the 2008 Sarajevo Film Festival but also arguably this entire blog, director/co-writer/star Branko Đurić’s film is an extremely broad comedy set entirely in a [...]
Girls
Lányok Hungary, 2007, colour, 90 minsThe opening titles of Anna Faur's disturbing feature debut begin with what looks like a standard disclaimer about the events and people depicted in the film being imaginary – presumably a Hungarian audience would have picked up on the fact that she sourced her material from a true story that hit the [...]
Snow
Snijeg Bosnia-Herzegovina/Germany/France/Iran, 2008, colour, 100 minsThe Sarajevo Film Festival got off to a strong start last night with the Bosnian premiere of Aida Begić’s debut feature, already the winner of the Grand Prix at Cannes’ Semaine de la Critique. If it initially seemed incongruous that a small-scale drama whose most telling [...]
Checking the Gate
As highlighted by my last post, this week sees the launch of the 'Check the Gate' festival of recent(ish) Hungarian cinema - and since I've now managed to see six-and-a-half out of the seven features being screened, here's a sneak preview of what's showing. Given that the festival's function is to provide a snapshot of what's been happening in [...]
Escape from the ‘Liberty’ Cinema
Ucieczka z kina 'Wolność' Poland, 1990, colour, 87 minsPremiered on 15 October 1990, just over a year after the election of Poland's first non-communist government in over four decades, Wojciech Marczewski's Escape from the 'Liberty' Cinema offers a bizarre but rather engaging combination of anti-communist satire and film-versus-reality [...]