Directed by Anastasia Lapsui and Markku Lehmuskallio • 2000 • Finland

A groundbreaking work of Indigenous cinema, Seven Songs of the Tundra is Anastasia Lapsui’s greatest tribute to her native Nenets culture. A nomadic people native to Siberia, the Nenets found their traditional way of life disr...

Directed by Alisa Kovalenko • 2023 • Ukraine

Alisa Kovalenko’s collective portrait of teenagers in the Donbas just prior to the full-scale invasion is a moving tribute to a world of opportunity now lost to military aggression. Andriy, Illia, Lera, Liza, and Ruslan have come of age in a world whe...

Directed by Kristīne Briede and Audrius Stonys • 2018 • Latvia/Lithuania

Acclaimed documentarians Kristīne Briede and Audrius Stonys honour their cinematic heritage in this meditative essay film about the “poetic documentary” school that came to define Baltic filmmaking. Emerging in the Soviet 1...

Directed by Sybilla Tuxen • 2023 • Russia/Denmark

Danish documentarian Sybilla Tuxen’s intimate and expansive portrait of youth on the edge in modern Russia asks urgent questions about political agency and personal freedom. Following three young women – Alika, Alyona, and Katya – as they attempt...

Directed by Salomé Jashi • 2016 • Georgia

Dariko and Khaka are the husband-and-wife team behind Jikha TV: an ultra-low-budget local news station in the remote Georgian town of Tsalenjikha. The pair run the station out of their own home, chasing down stories with a sense of professional pride tha...

Directed by Uldis Brauns • 1967 • USSR/Latvia

A landmark in the Baltic poetic documentary tradition, 235 000 000 is one of the most ambitious films of the Soviet 60s. Produced in celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the October Revolution – the title refers to the nominal population of the...

Directed by Nina Guseva • 2021 • Russia

The summer of 2019 saw Moscow gripped by protests following attempts to block opposition candidates from standing in local elections. Nearly 3,000 demonstrators were arrested. Nina Guseva’s immersive, gut-wrenching documentary follows one defendant, Konsta...

Directed by Luka Beradze • 2023 • Georgia

During the 2012 presidential elections in Georgia, the incumbent Mikheil Saakashvili made a strange offer to citizens in the country’s neglected rural outposts: in exchange for their votes, his party would provide them with new teeth. Residents began to ...

Directed by Andres Sööt • 1988 • USSR/Estonia

1988 proved a decisive year in Estonia’s journey towards independence from the Soviet Union. Over the course of just a few months, national symbols including the Estonian flag began to proliferate in public, rifts grew between local politicians and t...

Directed by Mikhail Kalatozov • 1930 • USSR/Georgia

The directorial debut of Mikhail Kalatozov – who would go on to electrify Soviet cinema with his Palme d’Or-winning The Cranes are Flying – Salt for Svanetia is a groundbreaking work of radical ethnographic documentary. Capturing the lives of t...

Directed by Vahagn Khachatryan and Aren Malakyan • 2022 • Armenia

A group portrait that captures the hybrid nature of modern-day Armenia, Vahagn Khachatryan and Aren Malakyan’s dreamlike documentary explores the gaps between fantasy and reality in the lives of four characters. Karen is a farmer ...

Directed by Kamila Kuc • 2021 • Poland/Abkhazia

Kamila Kuc’s radically empathetic exploration of the de facto Black Sea state of Abkhazia raises profound questions about displacement, memory, and trauma. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, a brutal war between separatist Abkhazia and the Geo...

Directed by Janyl Jusupjan • 2023 • Kyrgyzstan

Buzkashi is a traditional sport of Central Asia in which teams of horsemen battle to carry a goat carcass across a goal line. In this strictly gendered world, only men can play the game – but there are windows of opportunity for enterprising women. ...

Directed by Nikola Spasić • 2022 • Serbia

Nikola Spasić’s thoughtful, tender docufiction hybrid follows Kristina, a transgender Serbian sex worker and amateur antiquarian. A series of chance encounters with a former theology student named Marko disrupts her carefully ordered life, while openin...

Directed by Dziga Vertov • 1931 • USSR/Ukraine

A radical early sound film from the grandfather of non-fiction, Dziga Vertov’s Enthusiasm captures Ukraine’s Donbas in the throes of revolutionary transformation. Vertov’s vision of industrialisation in motion verges on abstract reverie, taking the ...

Directed by Juris Podnieks • 1986 • USSR/Latvia

Hailed as “the first bird of perestroika” by Mikhail Gorbachev, Juris Podnieks’ cult classic documentary is a vital document of a society on the brink of change. Podnieks shoots with compassion and anger, giving voice to a generation coming of age ...

Directed by Gergő Somogyvári • 2023 • Hungary

Fanni is a 19-year-old trans woman kicked out by her family, Laci a 60-year-old homeless man. Together, they create their own domestic world – their “Fairy Garden” – in the woods outside Budapest. Shot over more than three years, Gergő Somogyvári’s t...

Directed by Audrius Stonys • 2016 • Lithuania

Lithuanian glaciologist Ausra Revutaite has lived alone in the Tian Shen mountains of Kazakhstan for 30 years, with only a cat and a dog for company in her battered Soviet-era cabin. Her life is utterly dedicated to the study of the Tuyuksu Glacier. ...

Directed by Radu Jude • 2018 • Romania

In 1946, Romania’s wartime dictator and Nazi collaborator Marshal Ion Antonescu was executed, alongside three other officials. The incident was captured by amateur cameraman Ovidiu Gologan. In 1994, director Sergiu Nicolaescu recreated the scene for his per...