Cult Comedies: six films on the absurdity of modern life
Give in to the absurdity with our new collection of contemporary cult comedies. From Poland to Kazakhstan, rom-com to satire, these six titles capture the political, artistic, and romantic travails of modern life with wit and filmmaking bravado.
Two of Ukraine’s most promising directors take us off the beaten track to capture life beyond the headlines and the frontlines, with Roman Bondarchuk’s gonzo odyssey into the hinterlands of pre-invasion Ukraine in Volcano (2018) and Antonio Lukich’s deadpan road trip My Thoughts Are Silent (2019). Romance (and laughs) are in the air in Adilkhan Yerzhanov’s cinephile crime caper Yellow Cat (2020) and It’s Not My Film (2024), Maria Zbąska’s droll deconstruction of rom-com cliché. Alongside these features are two satirical shorts that thumb their nose at petty authority and bureaucratic nitpicking. Assel Aushakimova’s Comrade Policeman (2021) skewers the cosy relationship between the media and the state in Kazakhstan, while the great Radu Jude offers up 18 minutes of pure comic obscenity in The Potemkinists (2023).
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Volcano
Directed by Roman Bondarchuk • 2018 • Ukraine
Lukas, a translator for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), is transporting some foreign colleagues across the southern Ukrainian steppe, when he becomes stranded in a ramshackle small town. Can he trust the seemingly dera...
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My Thoughts Are Silent
Directed by Antonio Lukich • 2019 • Ukraine
Twenty-five-year-old Vadym (Andriy Lidahovskiy) is a sound recordist and musician dreaming of leaving Kyiv for distant Canada. He seems to have found his route out of Ukraine when he is tasked with capturing the call of a rare duck native to the Carpat...
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Yellow Cat
Directed by Adilkhan Yerzhanov • 2020 • Kazakhstan
A movie-obsessed ex-con and his sultry female companion are lovers on the lam in Adilkhan Yerzhanov’s droll and touching crime caper. Kermek (Azamat Nigmanov) returns from the joint to his native Kazakh village with a dream: to build a cinema on...
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It’s Not My Film
Directed by Maria Zbąska • 2024 • Poland
Maria Zbąska’s debut film is a charmingly cynical romantic comedy about rediscovering love in the darkest (and coldest) of places. Wanda (Zofia Chabiera) and Janek (Marcin Sztabiński) have reached an impasse in their marriage. He proposes a radical soluti...
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Comrade Policeman
Directed by Assel Aushakimova • 2021 • Kazakhstan
Assel Aushakimova (Welcome to the USA) shows why she is one of the most acute observers of contemporary Kazakh society with this droll satirical short. When a local reporter from state television is sent to capture a PR stunt from the Kazakh poli...
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The Potemkinists
Directed by Radu Jude • 2023 • Romania
The Potemkinists crams everything we love about Radu Jude into 18 minutes: playful deconstruction of national myth, deep knowledge of film history, and plenty of satirical obscenity. In 2021, a sculptor (Alexandru Dabija) brings a cultural bureaucrat (Crist...
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Cult Comedy: six films about the absurdity of modern life
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