Coverage from the 66th Leipzig International Film Festival for Documentary and Animated Film (8-15 October ..read more

In Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, the most maddening thing about war is the impossibility of trying to maintain sanity in an insane situation, like war. Through the bomber pilot Orr, the novel introduces us to the concept of Catch-22, a now familiar bon mot the post-War era popularized to describe a bureaucratic absurdity. In the book, the “catch” describes the insanity of war and the impossibility of maintaining sanity within it. Heller writes, “There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate wa ..read more

In times of desperation about originality in cinema, a cinephile can always count on the ideas of Radu Jude. His new film Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World that premiered at the 2023 Locarno Film Festival will not disappoint those who expect “too much” of the renowned Berlin Golden Bear winner and post-Romanian New Wave director. In his film, which he aptly describes as a “collage film” but is more of a film of forms, archive images, colors and ideas filled with cynical humor and daring writing, Jude presents a series of diverse and shifting tableaux: different faces of the main ..read more

In 1943, Italian forces withdrew from the Croatian region of Dalmatia, leaving the population ostensibly free but in reality at strong risk of retaliation from the Germans. This threat was especially high for families known to be associated with the Partisan movement, and as such Tito ordered the evacuation of the entire non-combatant population. This group amounting to tens of thousands of people, it was difficult to find somewhere big enough to accommodate them. The solution eventually settled on was El Shatt, a remote desert area of Egypt, where these refugees created a camp that would beco ..read more

Coverage from the 35th Trieste Film Festival (January 19-27). The post Trieste 2024 first appeared on East European Film Bulletin ..read more

Germany’s reaction to the armed conflict between Hamas-led Palestinian militant groups and Israel that broke out on 7 October 2023, has resulted in a series of prohibitions, ranging from legal bans to symbolic Denkverbote. On October 13th, in Berlin, authorities have revoked the right to use slogans like “Free Palestine” in schools. On the same day in Frankfurt, the management of the Book Fair postponed indefinitely the awarding of a literary prize to the Palestinian novelist Adania Shibli, on the grounds that it was necessary to make Israeli voices “particularly visible”. Co-president of the ..read more

Women’s Cinema is a 21st century global phenomenon, especially when it comes to documentary filmmaking. In today’s feature film industry in Russia, only about 20% of film directors are women. Unfortunately, there are no statistics about their role in documentary film since Russian documentaries were not and are still not shown widely in movie theaters. Among the few documentaries that have been distributed in small cinemas, none have been made by women. Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, documentary films were presented primarily at film festivals like Artdocfest in Moscow, which later mo ..read more

Coverage from the 57th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (June 30-July 8) The post Karlovy Vary 2023 first appeared on East European Film Bulletin ..read more

The annual Karlovy Vary International Film Festival serves not only as a launchpad for Central, Eastern and South-Eastern European discoveries but also showcases the latest domestic productions. Recent editions have seen a noticeable tilt towards the newer generation of filmmakers, with the 2023 KVIFF line-up featuring a majority of Czech works from emerging local artists. A standout deviation from this trend was Snake Gas (Hadí plyn), the third fiction feature by Czech theater director David Jařab. Amidst his commitments to numerous Czech and Slovak theater stages, Jařab made his cinematic de ..read more

Recent developments in Bulgarian cinema reveal a significant shift marked by the emergence of a new wave of filmmakers who are keen to delve into the multifaceted realities of contemporary Bulgarian society. Since the fall of the Iron Curtain and the cessation of state censorship, the nation’s film landscape has become increasingly receptive to a broad array of influences both global and experimental. As a result, today’s Bulgarian directors are unencumbered by the didactic limitations that once characterized their medium, affording them greater freedom to tackle themes of personal and social ..read more