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Available online: November 18 - 19

Havel

This prismatic, utterly absorbing biographical drama is inspired by the life and turbulent times of Václav Havel, prominent Czech playwright, dissident, and, eventually, president of the newly formed Czech Republic. The film focuses on Havel’s transformation from a successful—and later banned—playwright of the late ’60s into a fighter for human rights in the ’70s, leading to his presidency in the late ’80s after the Velvet Revolution. Torn between his passions and self-imposed duties, Havel is one of the most compelling, complex figures of the late 20th century. His role in ending the Cold War is critical, but Havel the man was much, much more, as this inventive biopic stylishly demonstrates. “[Horák] matches each of the film’s periods to a different style: the 1960s to the Czech New Wave, the 1970s to normalization films, and the 1980s to documentary-like grainy footage. The stylization enables a fine adjustment of dramatic effects” (Martin Kudláč, Cineuropa).

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Available online: November 19 - 20

Redemption of a Rogue

They say you can’t go home again. Jimmy (Aaron Monaghan) begs to differ. In this hilarious black comedy, the proverbial prodigal son seeks salvation for his sins. Jimmy has a bleak view of life, to say the least; inside his bag is the rope with which he plans to hang himself. Returning to the austere beauty of Ballylough to say goodbye to his family, he finds that his brother Damien, after caring for their sick father for seven years, is bitter about Jimmy’s long-postponed reappearance. As if a sign from heaven, Jimmy’s return causes the thunder to rumble and the rain to pour. For reasons outlined in his father’s unconventional will, Jimmy is stuck in his hometown until the seemingly endless storms stop. In this Irish Groundhog Day purgatory, days roll into weeks as Jimmy seeks absolution and even stumbles upon love. The Irish Examiner calls the film “the funniest Irish movie in a generation.”

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Available online: November 20 - 21

Karaoke Paradise

Evi has heart. As Finland’s most experienced and well-travelled karaoke hostess, she has dedicated herself to easing her customers’ various emotional pains. Time and again she packs up her karaoke gear and hits the road to towns sprinkled across the vast northern landscapes of Finland. In Einari Paakkanen’s intimate, insightful documentary, Evi’s personal journey is chronicled as it connects with the lives of ordinary Finns who pick up the microphone and sing their hearts out: Toni, the shyest guy in the world, utterly transforms when onstage; Kari searches for love and sings about it; Elina can hardly walk because of Parkinson’s but screams out punk songs; and Laura sings because talking is too painful. A charming portrait about the strange magical power of karaoke, Karaoke Paradise reveals that, thanks to Evi’s remarkable passion, some lucky Finns have found an inspired way out of their loneliness.

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A Taste of Hunger (Smagen af sult)

Christoffer Boe’s glossy and fashionable approach to filmmaking, which earned him the Camera d’Or at Cannes for his feature debut Reconstruction (and an EUFF slot back in 2005), contrasted with his contemporaries, the Danish signatories of the Dogme 95 manifesto. That comparison continues as Boe’s latest follows Dogme co-founder Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Round in a wave of high-profile actors returning home for some high-spirited drama. In this case, it is Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (of Game of Thrones fame) starring opposite Katrine Greis-Rosenthal as a couple opening an alluring and ambitious restaurant. “One of the most exciting elements of A Taste of Hunger is the over-the-top style that Boe and cinematographer Manuel Alberto Claro bring to the film. When Maggie and Carsten are vibrating on the same creatively energetic wavelength, there’s an almost operatic approach to lighting … [This] isn’t just refreshingly vivid and visually striking, it adds to the narrative and emotional drama” (Katie Walsh, Los Angeles Times).

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The Volunteer (La Voluntaria)

Marisa is a kind, spirited, recently retired doctor. Wanting to escape her meaningless routines and seemingly endless free time, she travels to Greece to work as a volunteer with child refugees. Once there, Marisa realizes that the managers of the refugee camp deem it more important to obey established rules than to help. Her bosses, who work for the NGO overseeing the camp, seem obsessed with their own importance as would-be saviours, maintaining firm control of the refugee population. They do not allow Marisa to adapt her tutoring to the personal needs of the children. Despite the rules, Marisa takes the initiative, becoming especially attached to Ahmed, a boy traumatized by the disappearance of his parents. An insightful, powerful drama about the limits (and dangers) of altruism, The Volunteer is a moving work that features an astonishing performance by Goya Award-winner Carmen Machi as Marisa.

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Available online: November 21 - 22

Skin Walker

As Christian Neuman’s taut, stylish thriller opens, Regine, a psychologically fragile young woman, hides in the city, far from the dark and forbidding countryside of her childhood. She’s struggling to escape the traumatic events of her family’s past, especially the disastrous home birth experience of her brother Isaac, which led to her mother’s insanity and Isaac’s apparent death. When Regine’s grandmother is murdered years later, a disturbing question rises to the surface: is Isaac still alive, looking for revenge against a family which he feels has rejected him? Driven to heal the wounds of the past, Regine returns to face her family’s secrets and guilt, as well as her own role in these events. Featuring impressive performances by Amber Anderson (Emma, White Lie) and the legendary Udo Kier.

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Available online: November 22 -23

Silence: Voices of Lisbon (Silêncio - Vozes de Lisboa)

Silence: Voices of Lisbon is an engaging, emotionally charged documentary about memory and music set against the backdrop of the ancient but rapidly changing city of Lisbon. Following the footsteps of Céline, who has lived in Portugal for twenty years, we are introduced to Ivone Días and Marta Miranda, two women artists from different generations who fight for the survival of their art and community. Their common language is fado, a traditional style of music that often explores, with beauty and melancholy, the daily struggle of living. With the lyrics of fado songs taking us through their story as well as Lisbon’s, the film portrays the relationship between these extraordinary singers and the ever-changing world around them. A poetic journey through one of the world’s most majestic, haunting, and musically vibrant cities.

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Vassilis Xiros, director, will be in attendance.

Available online: November 22 - 24

A Day in the Life of a Teddy Bear

When it came time for Vassilis Xiros, a former foreign affairs diplomat, to realize his passion project of an independent film, naturally he made a cross-cultural relationship drama. His debut, the first-ever co-production between Greece and China, is a day-long dialogue picture in the tradition of Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise. As in that film, timing is everything: Jinxi (Tu Hua), a student violinist, is about to leave for Vienna, while Panos (Dimitris Mothonaios), a young architect, has just arrived in Shanghai. For at least one day—thanks to the recovery of the teddy bear of the title—the two keep each other company as they think out loud about their ideals, doubts, and cultural presumptions. Xiros, who also wrote the screenplay, is aided by the veteran talent of editor Lambis Haralambidis, who handled Costa-Gavras’s latest film, the Greece-set Adults in the Room.

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Available online: November 24 - 25

Fox in a Hole (Fuchs Im Bau)

Set in a juvenile correctional facility, Fox in a Hole revolves around teacher Hannes Fuchs (Aleksandar Petrović), newly assigned to work at its school for troubled youth. In his late thirties with his own dark past and personal demons, Fuchs (whose surname translates as “Fox”) starts working alongside professor Elisabeth Berger (Maria Hofstätter, also seen in The Orchestra, Slovenia’s EUFF selection this year), whose unorthodox teaching methods seem to work but rub him the wrong way. Since this facility’s classroom is filled with troublemakers from all strata of Austrian society, Fuchs tries to instill a more structured, disciplined approach. His efforts are frustrated, however, by one particularly problematic student, a Bosnian girl named Samira (Luna Jordan). Incarcerated for putting her father in a coma, she seems ready to explode at any moment. As Samira and Fuchs develop an uneasy relationship, everything will change. But for the better?

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Fear (Strah)

This all-star team-up of director Ivaylo Hristov (Losers) and actress Svetlana Yancheva (The Sinking of Sozopol, EUFF 2015), both of them multiple-prize winners at the Bulgarian Film Academy Awards, is an impassioned salvo against the legally expedient—and inhumane—route that governments, both big and small, often take to decide who belongs to what country. Svetla (Svetlana Yancheva) lives alone in a small village close to the Turkish border. One day, while hunting in a forest, she encounters Bamba (Michael Flemming), a refugee who is trying to reach Germany. Reluctantly, she offers him hospitality, and in doing so goes against Svetla’s traditional community, who plot to invasively enforce their interpretation of the law. Hristov’s big swings of tone, from the serious-minded to the satiric, owe something to Aki Kaurismaki’s recent refugee tales Le Havre and The Other Side of Hope. Winner of the Grand Prix at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival in Estonia.

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Available online: November 25 - 26

No One's with the Calves (Niemand ist bei den Kälbern)

The groundbreaking Berlin School group of filmmakers (including Valeska Grisebach and Christian Petzold), about to reach two decades of activity, is now established enough to have cast its influence over a new generation of directors. One candidate for this next wave is Sabrina Sarabi (who has also cited Andrea Arnold as a role model). “Sarabi draws one of the most vivid and complex female portraits of this year’s Locarno selection. Based on the homonymous novel by Alina Herbing, the film develops around the figure of Christin, a young woman who lives and works with her partner Jan on his family’s farm … [Christin] finds herself in an environment she detests, overwhelmed by the incomprehension, boredom, and indifference of those around her. Saskia Rosendahl, who portrays this multifaceted character with absolute dedication, was awarded the Pardo for Best Actress.” (Maria Giovanna Vagenas, Senses of Cinema).

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Győző Szabó, writer and producer, will be in attendance.

Available online: November 26 - 27

Toxikoma

Popular director Gábor Herendi (Kincsem, EUFF 2017) pulls out all the stops to realize the inner struggles of an actor in this redemption drama. Hungarian actor Győző Szabó's memoir is the basis for this battle-of-the-wills two-hander. After accepting treatment for his heroin addiction, Szabó (Áron Molnár) meets Dr. Chernus (Bányai Kelemen Brown), whose intense and unconventional approach to recovery stirs something in the once rising star. “The script’s strongest aspect is the solid and rich portrayal of two personalities in opposition who, at the end of the day, turn out to be very much alike in their stubbornness to follow their own paths, whatever the consequences might be. The dynamic cinematography (Péter Szatmári), spiced up by animated images that literally transmit Győző’s stoned hallucinations, together with deft editing (István Király and Tomi Szabo), make Toxikoma a dark but smooth journey through a personal crisis and behavioural patterns” (Mariana Hristova, Cineuropa).

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Piotr Domalewski, director, will be in attendance.

Available online: November 28 - 29

I Never Cry (Jak najdalej stad)

Ola is 17 and faces the usual trials of teenage life, like her driving test, which she has repeatedly failed. Suddenly, after receiving the news that her estranged father, a migrant worker on the docks of Dublin, has died in a work accident, Ola must embark on a lonely odyssey from Poland to Ireland to retrieve his body and—importantly for her impoverished family—her share of whatever money the man has left behind. Throughout this journey to a foreign land, Ola not only navigates her way through the thickets of Irish bureaucracy but also, by talking with her father’s co-workers, begins to get a fuller picture of who her father really was. In this difficult but often gentle and even amusing process, her harsh, sarcastic personality begins to soften. Brimming with rage and intelligence, sadness and joy, Zofia Stafiej as Ola is unforgettable.

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Available online: November 27 - 28

The Pit (Bedre)

Markuss (Damir Onackis), a young man adapting to countryside life with his grandmother, is at the centre of this intimate and affecting family drama. After Emīlija, a neighbour’s daughter, throws some contemptuous remarks about the boy’s father his way, vengeful Markuss decides to teach her a lesson. His actions have severe consequences that send shock waves through the village. Forced to work as punishment, he begins to nurse a deep hatred towards the other villagers. There is one person Markuss can relate to, however: an old sailor living in the nearby woods. They inspire one another and keep each other’s secrets. Through a series of startling and unexpected events, the boy’s reputation will radically change. The Pit won the Grand Prix at Nordic Film Days in Germany and was Latvia’s entry for Best International Film at the 94th Academy Awards.

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Available online: November 29 - 30

Patchwork

Petros Charalambous’s follow-up to Boy on the Bridge (EUFF 2017) is a knotty, multi-faceted drama of middle-aged regret. Angeliki Papoulia, the fearless Greek actor at the centre of Yorgos Lanthimos’s break-out films Dogtooth (2009) and Alps (2011), stars as Chara, a complicated character who, in producer and writer Janine Teerling’s script, is presented with a series of foils: her mother, a dreaded influence; the new hire at Chara’s workplace, childless and content; and a prickly teenaged intern, who she might take under her wing. “Chara’s family is everything to her, and yet she sometimes ponders life without them … Charalambous’s psychological drama raises several provocative questions: What makes a woman a mother? And is motherhood a natural state of boundless love and caring, or is it an ideal imposed by society? A multi-layered story of a woman struggling through moments of existential angst” (Sandra Hezinová, Karlovy Vary).

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Diabolik

After taking the best film prize at the 2017 David di Donatello awards, directors Antonio and Marco Manetti set their sights on Diabolik, a comic-origin cat burglar whose DNA carries traces of Fantômas, Robin Hood, and James Bond. The anti-hero started a tradition of pulp-serial storytelling in Italy, one with a distinctly cinematic lineage (the first Diabolik film was directed by genre master Mario Bava). Here, rising star Luca Marinelli (Martin Eden, The Old Guard) dons the mask. “Having routed the Clerville police, the masked criminal known as Diabolik already has a new target: the sublime Eva Kant, a wealthy heiress who is due to arrive in town soon, a legendary pink diamond in her suitcases … More than fifty years after Bava’s adaptation, the famous fumetti character returns to the big screen in a modern version that is as respectful as it is stylized.” (Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival, Switzerland).

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Available online: November 30 - December 1

A Butterfly's Heart (Drugelio širdis)

This is the delightful story of ten-year-old Juozapas, a boy who survived a difficult birth with the rare but real condition of his heart living outside of his chest. Throughout his young life, Juozapas has tried to avoid too much interaction with other children, just to play it safe. Indeed, the centre of his world is a magnificent deserted house nearby. His closest friends are the many insects who occupy a terrarium, lovingly crafted by Juozapas in the form of a hotel. When a young girl named Rugilė arrives in town, Juozapas begins to discover new ways of seeing life and himself. Sensitive and charming, A Butterfly’s Heart is a beautiful story of one boy’s quest to find acceptance in an often unforgiving world.

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Available online: December 1 -2

White on White (Biela na bielej)

This spellbinding, philosophically searching documentary is director Viera Čákanyová’s often breathtakingly beautiful video diary of her sojourn at a remote station in Antarctica. During her stay, surrounded by computers, machines, and vast vistas of snow, she explores the role of technology in this forbidding landscape, and leads conversations examining the nature of film, art, artificial intelligence, and, perhaps inevitably, the meaning of life. Juxtaposing these ruminations with footage from her everyday life at the station and with lyrical images of the stunning natural wonders of Antarctica, White on White offers an original, compelling perspective on humanity’s relationship to nature and to the evermore pervasive technocentric civilization it has constructed.

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Metronom

Set in Bucharest in communist Romania in 1972, Alexandru Belc’s powerful drama is part coming-of-age tale, part political thriller. Ana (Mara Bugarin), 17, dreams of first love with her classmate Sorin, and of freedom in their future. One night while secretly partying, Ana and her friends boldly decide to send a letter to Metronom, a musical program that Radio Free Europe broadcasts clandestinely (and illegally) in Romania. Unaware they are being watched, they are shocked when the Securitate, Ceaușescu’s secret police, arrives and interrogates these young “subversives.” Taken into police detention, Ana and her friends are forced to write detailed statements about the party, naming names and assigning blame for their modest but nonetheless illegal act of anti-government protest. On this night of profound change, Ana suddenly faces a new, very uncertain future. Winner of the best director award in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.

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Available online: December 2 - 3

On the Water (Vee peal)

Director Peeter Simm, last seen at EUFF in 2009 with his grand music biopic Georg, returns with a throwback to the late Soviet era of the 1980s. Andres, a 12-year-old living under his grandparents’ strict care, explores his small-town community with a thirst for experience. “Simm’s film stays on the same wavelength with Olavi Ruitlane’s bestseller of the same title, being simultaneously, as in the Estonian classics In the Back Yard and Spring, comical and tragic, lyrical and grotesque, tender and cruel. There are a lot of ’firsts’ here: the first willie-fiddling, the first love, the first close encounter with death, plus a number of farcical events which can only happen in the fertile conditions of the Soviet absurd … Still, it is not a story of the end of an era, but about the possibilities of staying human in an imperfect world” (Tiit Tuumalu, Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival).

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Available online: December 3 - 4

Orchestra (Orkester)

As the raucous members of a brass band get ready to travel to a small Austrian town for a performance, things start to go awry. Along the way, they sing, cheer, and drink. After all, being part of a brass band is a joyful hobby for most members. However, not everything is as it seems. Stories emerge: a first-time bus driver confesses his responsibility for an accident to an untrustworthy senior colleague; one band member cannot hide his shameful drinking from his kind Austrian host; a teenage band member on her first tour with dad witnesses her father’s adultery. These distinct but interconnected stories soon reveal that hiding one’s actions and intentions is the fastest and surest way to make them shameful! Offbeat and endearing, The Orchestra was selected as Slovenia’s official entry to this year’s Academy Award for Best International Film.

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Available online: December 4 - 5

Carmen

Carmen (Natascha McElhone) finds, at 50, a surprising new life through the oddest circumstances in this sun-drenched, ’80s-set magical realist tale. In her small Maltese village, Carmen has looked after her brother, the local priest, for her entire life. Unmarried and alone, her cloistered life is shattered when her brother dies. The church abandons Carmen, casting her out of the official residence where she served her brother, but some in the village believe that she is to become the new priest. Through a series of whimsical events where she takes on a pseudo-priestly role, Carmen begins to see the world, and herself, in a new light. Carmen is a delightful, hopeful film that demonstrates it’s never too late for reinvention.

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Available online: December 5 - 6

Patrick (De Patrick)

Having built up a repertoire of TV credits (including Peaky Blinders and Legion), director Tim Mielants presents this debut feature, a spin on the locked-room mystery—the “room,” in this case, being a nudist camp—in this mix of folk comedy and modern malaise. The all-important set-up: the camp’s owner dies, and a prominently displayed hammer from the collection of handyman Patrick disappears. “[Mielants] populates the campsite with an eclectic array of people, some helpful to Patrick, others a hindrance. The director effectively creates an isolated micro-universe within our own … With a killer central performance from Kevin Janssens as the titular Patrick and Jemaine Clement in a beautiful turn as a new guest at the campsite, Patrick is a truly unique film. In turns funny and uncomfortable, [Mielants’s film] will leave a mark reminiscent of Force Majeure and Toni Erdmann.” (Evrim Ersoy, Fantastic Fest).

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Available online: December 6 - 7

Tereza37

Lana Barić stars (in a role she scripted) in this character study that doubles as social critique. Tereza, the 37-year-old of the title, has just miscarried but doesn’t share this fact with those around her, internalizing the experience as the latest in a series of failures. When her gynecologist blithely suggests she may be genetically incompatible with her husband, a seasonal fisher, Tereza contemplates infidelity. “Tereza37 is the latest in a line of recent Croatian films that examine the patriarchy in the coastal region of Dalmatia. This trend started a few years ago with Hana Jušić’s Quit Staring at My Plate [EUFF 2018] … One of the key ideas explored by this wave is the notion that tradition, patriarchy included, is not necessarily imposed by the male members of the family, since they tend to be absent or disinterested, but by the elder women who become its fiercest keepers.” (Marko Stojiljković, Cineuropa).

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Tigers

Martin Bengtsson (played by The Bridge star Erik Enge in a powerhouse performance) is considered Sweden’s most promising football talent in a generation. At sixteen, his lifelong dream comes true: his rights are bought by the prestigious Italian club Inter Milan. It’s the chance of a lifetime, but it also comes with high expectations and intense pressure. Martin soon begins to question whether this is the life he really wants. Based on Bengtsson’s memoir In The Shadows of San Siro, Tigers lifts the lid off the luxurious lifestyles of sports superstars, an unstable, rollercoaster world where everything, and everyone, has a price tag. “Expertly crafted … In an assured second directorial feature, Sandahl stays within the general thematic parameters of his screenplays for Janus Metz’s Borg vs. McEnroe and Olivia Wilde’s forthcoming Perfect, another fact-inspired sports tale ... Compelling, well cast and directed with vivid intensity.” (Dennis Harvey, Variety).

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Available online: December 8 - 9

Love in a Bottle

In the chaos of a pandemic-disrupted Milan airport, strangers Lucky (Hannah Hoekstra) and Miles (James Krishna Floyd) almost miss each other. But the romantic impulse wins out: Lucky swipes Miles’s luggage tag, and this becomes a lifeline for the both of them during the dark, isolating early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Directed by the prolific Paula van der Oest (Tonio, EUFF 2018), this long-distance relationship unfolds completely within the oasis (or purgatory) of the computer screen. Consider it a You’ve Got Mail for the always-online era. “[Lucky and Miles] are opposite personalities: she is a playful perfume maker and trampoline jumper, he is a somewhat inhibited ICT professional and nature photographer … Love in a Bottle is remarkably intimate; a privilege of the (emergency) chosen form ... [It] captures something essential about digital contact, which sometimes makes conversations less veiled and more honest” (Bor Beekman, De Volkskrant).

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This screening is a fundraiser. All ticket proceeds from this screening will be sent to the UNITED24 platform (an initiative by the President of Ukraine) to procure emergency transport vehicles for the healthcare facilities in Kramatorsk, Ukraine. The aim in Canada is to raise C$100,000. To donate directly, go to https://donorbox.org/emergency_canada

Klondike

Accolades have followed Maryna Er Gorbach’s solo debut around the festival circuit this year, beginning with its world premiere (Sundance’s Best Director prize) and culminating in being selected as Ukraine’s submission to the Academy Awards. But beyond its ripped-from-the-headlines relevance, this is a sturdy, visually precise drama in the vein of Bergman’s Shame. “It is 2014, and Irka (Oxana Cherkashyna), heavily pregnant and saddled with a rather frustrating husband, finds herself at a crossroads when an errant bomb blows a hole in the side of her house, and shortly thereafter a Malaysian commercial plane is shot down nearby, killing 298 passengers and crew. Comic in the darkest of ways, and searing in many others, Klondike is a reminder that even in the most precarious of times, the mundanities of life go on—and that war’s toll on ordinary people is often unfathomable” (Alissa Wilkinson, Vox).

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Post-screening reception hosted by the Embassy of France.

Available online: December 9 - 10

Lost Illusions (Les illusions perdues)

A richly detailed, visually gorgeous adaptation of the eponymous Balzac novel, Lost Illusions is set in the 1820s and revolves around 20-year-old poet Lucien de Rubempré, who travels from his provincial home to Paris after a scandalous affair with a local society lady. He is sensitive, idealistic, and determined to force the literary world to notice him. Contrary to his high expectations, he finds he has to make ends meet by writing shallow, catty theatre reviews and ends up trapped in the world of low-brow journalism. Under the influence of his cynical boss, Lucien soon succumbs to bribery and cronyism, achieving wealth and standing at the cost of his integrity and even some friendships. In a last attempt to free himself from the all-consuming corruption, he risks everything to buy a title of nobility. But will the gamble work?

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