Adventures in Eastern Europe: a cult cinema playlist from Dan Bird
To accompany our interview with Eastern European cult cinema aficionado Dan Bird on the Klassiki Podcast, we present this special playlist.
Dan Bird is a writer, curator, archivist, and filmmaker. Through his work in restoration, retrospectives, biography, and distribution, he has championed countless films from Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. and has played a key role in preserving the legacies of iconic figures like Walerian Borowczyk, Sergei Parajanov, and Andrzej Żuławski. During his recent appearance on the Klassiki Podcast, Dan made reference to a wide range of directors and titles that have influenced his career, many of which are available to watch now for Klassiki subscribers. So, we decided to compile this handy playlist to help you dive into the wild world of cult cinema from the region. Happy watching!
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Love Affair, or The Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator
Directed by Dušan Makavejev • 1967 • Yugoslavia
This gleefully subversive, formally skittish, and surprisingly moving oddity from the inimitable Dušan Makavejev is a high point of the Yugoslav Black Wave. Centred around the doomed romance between a Hungarian switchboard operator Izabela (Eva Ras...
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Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors
Directed by Sergei Parajanov • 1965 • USSR/Ukraine
The first mature masterpiece from one of world cinema’s true poets, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors bursts with imagination. Grounded in the folk traditions, aesthetics, and dialect of the Hutsul people of western Ukraine, Parajanov’s tale of for...
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Hakob Hovnatanyan
Directed by Sergei Parajanov • 1967 • Armenia/USSR
After completing Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors and before embarking on The Colour of Pomegranates, the great Sergei Parajanov produced this exquisite miniature about the work of Hakob Hovnatanyan, a nineteenth-century Armenian portraitist rever...
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Jirtdan
Directed by Aghanaghi Akhundov and Yalchin Efendiyev • 1969 • USSR/Azerbaijan
Produced at the start of the golden age of Azerbaijani animation, Akhundov and Efendiyev’s Jirtdan (meaning “small” or “dwarf”) is a magical little treat in which the titular tiny hero and his brothers must outwit the ...
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The White Bird Marked with Black
Directed by Yuri Ilyenko • 1971 • USSR/Ukraine
Yuri Ilyenko’s landmark film follows the Zvonars, a family of poor musicians, as personal and geopolitical crises collide across the course of the tumultuous 1940s. Set in the region of Bukovina, on the border between Ukraine and Romania, Ilyenko’s ...
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The Long Farewell
Directed by Kira Muratova • 1971 • USSR/Ukraine
Ukrainian auteur Kira Muratova’s sophomore directorial effort, The Long Farewell was shelved by censors until 1987, then heralded as a lost masterpiece. This simple tale of maternal jealousy and filial rebellion is transformed by Muratova into a th...
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Brief Encounters
Directed by Kira Muratova • 1967 • USSR/Ukraine
The debut feature from one of Russian-language cinema’s most fearless auteurs, Brief Encounters is a quietly devastating gem. Banned for twenty years and only rediscovered in the late ‘80s, this beautifully staged domestic drama uses flashbacks to ...
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My Friend Ivan Lapshin
Directed by Aleksei German • 1984 • USSR/Russia
Russian auteur Aleksei German’s masterpiece journeys into the past, as an elderly man reflects on his childhood in a communal apartment in a mid-thirties provincial town. As a nine-year-old boy, he is witness to the lives of those around him – chie...
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Khrustalyov, My Car!
Directed by Aleksei German • 1998 • Russia
Moscow, February 1953. General Yuri Klensky is a prominent brain surgeon, living a life of luxury and prestige – until he is accused of being part of a plot to kill Stalin. The story of his arrest, torture, and eventual “freedom” upon Stalin’s own death...
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Autumn Sun
Directed by Bagrat Oganesyan • 1977 • USSR / Armenia
Strikingly progressive and beautifully crafted, Bagrat Oganesyan’s Autumn Sun tells the story of Aghun (a bravado performance by the director’s own wife, Anahit Gukasyan), a simple woman forced to contend with the banal cruelties of the men wh...
