Directed by Jasmila Žbanić • 2020 • Bosnia and Herzegovina

Jasmila Žbanić’s Oscar-nominated account of the Srebrenica massacre during the Bosnian War is a meticulously realised vision of inhumanity and resilience. Jasna Ðuričić stars as Aida, a translator sheltering in a United Nations compound ...

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Directed by Marija Kavtaradzė • 2023 • Lithuania

When sign language interpreter Dovydas (Kęstutis Cicėnas) meets dancer Elena (Greta Grinevičiūtė), their attraction is instant and intense. But when Dovydas reveals that he is asexua...

Directed by Blerta Basholli • 2021 • Kosovo

Blerta Basholli’s tale of resilience and female solidarity in post-war Kosovo brought Europe’s youngest nation to the cinema world’s attention when it became the first film to win all three principal awards at Sundance. Based on a true story, Hive tell...

Directed by Lana Gogoberidze • 1978 • USSR/Georgia

A pioneering work of feminist filmmaking from the legendary Lana Gogoberidze, Some Interviews on Personal Matters is one of the most vital films produced in Soviet Georgia. The iconic Sofiko Chiaureli (The Colour of Pomegranates) stars as a jour...

Directed by Leida Laius • 1988 • USSR/Estonia

The final film from the great Leida Laius, A Stolen Meeting is a vivid and heartfelt take on rootlessness, reconciliation, and motherhood at the end of the Soviet era. On her release from a Russian prison, Valentina (Maria Klenskaja) returns to her n...

Directed by Leida Laius • 1985 • USSR/Estonia

16-year-old Mari (Monika Järv) is sent by her alcoholic, widowed father to a state orphanage in rural Estonia. There, she must contend with the social cruelty of her peers and the competing attentions of upstanding Tauri (Tauri Tallermaa) and his reb...

Directed by Ralitza Petrova • 2016 • Bulgaria

Ralitza Petrova’s uncompromising portrait of Bulgarian society’s spiritual decline is one of the most vital films to emerge from the Balkans in the last decade. First-time actor Irena Ivanova is impassively impressive as Gana, a social care nurse who...

Directed by Austėja Urbaitė • 2022 • Lithuania

The debut feature from Lithuania’s Austėja Urbaitė, the compelling Remember to Blink charts the thin line between devotion and aggression. In the secluded French countryside, Jacqueline and Léon (Anne Azoulay and Arthur Igual) are set to welcome the...

Directed by Maya Vitkova • 2014 • Bulgaria

In 1979, Boryana’s dreams of escaping communist Bulgaria are undone by the miraculous birth, without an umbilical cord, of her daughter Viktoria. Symbolically proclaimed “baby of the decade” by the state, Viktoria lives a pampered life until the eventua...

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 Kaltrina Krasniqi • 2021 • Kosovo

Kaltrina Krasniqi’s portrait of female resilience is one of the most vital Kosovan films of recent years. Vera (Teuta Ajdini Jegeni) is a middle-aged sign language interpreter whose life is thrown into disorder by her husband’s sudden suicide. A seri...

Directed by Eliza Petkova • 2016 • Bulgaria

Eliza Petkova’s Berlin-award-winning debut explores the tension between duty and individuality in a picturesque Bulgarian village. Lora (Anna Manolova) is a 17-year-old out of step with the traditions and rhythms of her rural home. When her father dies...

Directed by Ester Krumbachová • 1970 • Czechoslovakia
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Ester Krumbachová was the hidden mastermind behind the Czech New Wave, contributing costumes, set design, and screenplays for some of the most celebrated films of the era. This n...

Directed by Zara Jian • 2024 • Armenia

In 2022, as war rages in Ukraine and tensions mount over Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenian filmmaker Zara Jian returns to her homeland in search of artistic and political inspiration. She finds it in the creativity and bravery of Sergei Parajanov, the celebrated a...

Directed by Laila Pakalniņa • 2015 • Latvia

At once an homage to and a subversive reimagining of Soviet cinematic heritage, Laila Pakalniņa’s Dawn is one of post-independence Latvia’s most crucial films. Pakalniņa draws on the Stalinist propaganda myth of Pavlik Morozov: an ardent Pioneer who wa...

Directed by Maria Rigel • 2025 • Armenia

Maria Rigel’s mercurial crime drama moves to the rhythms of the natural world, paying tribute to Armenian film icons like Sergei Parajanov. Hayk (Albert Babajanyan) is an introverted child living in the care of his aunt Narine (Lusine Avanesyan) in a remo...

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...

Directed by Agnieszka Holland • 2017 • Poland

Two of Poland’s cultural titans join forces as veteran auteur Agnieszka Holland adapts Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk’s Drive Your Plough Over the Bones of the Dead into a propulsive eco-thriller. Agnieszka Mandat is magnetic as Duszejko, an animal ri...

Directed by Ena Sendijarević • 2019 • Bosnia and Herzegovina/Netherlands

Dutch-Bosnian director Ena Sendijarević concocts a summery but unsentimental coming-of-age drama out of the fault lines between Western and Eastern Europe in this award-winning feature. Born and raised in the Netherlands, A...

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 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 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 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 ...

Directed by Dinara Asanova • 1983 • USSR/Russia

A former athlete leads a sports summer camp for troubled teens in this drama from Dinara Asanova. Famed for her use of improvisation, Asanova uses this chronicle of a summer to investigate the paradoxical vulnerability of these supposedly “tough” o...