Directed by Andrei Tarkosvky • 1983 • Italy/USSR/Russia

The first film that Andrei Tarkovsky made outside of the Soviet Union, Nostalghia is one of the great director’s most wistful and intimate features. Co-written with Antonioni collaborator Tonino Guerra, the story explores the sense of dislo...

Directed by Andrei Zvyagintsev • 2014 • Russia

Andrei Zvyagintsev’s modern masterpiece recasts the Biblical parable of Job as an epic, witheringly comic treatise on life in Putin’s Russia. On the bleakly beautiful Arctic coast, mechanic Kolya (Aleksei Serebryakov) lives with his withdrawn second...

Directed by Emir Kusturica • 1998 • Serbia

A careening ensemble comedy bursting at the seams with music and visual energy, Black Cat, White Cat is Emir Kusturica’s madcap tribute to the marginalised and dispossessed. The film follows the twisted romances and small-time schemes of a community of ...

Directed by Boštjan Hladnik • 1979 • Slovenia/Yugoslavia

This riotous, disco-drenched take on the classic whodunnit tale from socialist Slovenia is a queer cult classic in waiting. A glamorous older woman known only as “Auntie” (Duša Počkaj) lives in a stylish seaside villa, where she passes the...

Directed by Aizhan Kassymbek • 2023 • Kazakhstan

Aizhan Kassymbek’s sophomore feature confirms her place as one of Kazakhstan’s most promising filmmakers. Based on the true story of the director’s friend Madina Akylbek – who tackles the lead role with remarkable courage – the film follows a sing...

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 Norika Sefa • 2021 • Kosovo

Transporting the classic coming-of-age tale to rural Kosovo, Norika Sefa’s Looking for Venera announced the emergence of another bold filmmaking talent from Europe’s youngest nation. Teenaged Venera (Kosovare Krasniqi) struggles against the constraints of ...

Directed by Tadeusz Konwicki • 1958 • Poland

Tadeusz Konwicki’s austere but beautiful examination of life in the aftermath of tragedy is one of the most exacting early masterpieces of the Polish Film School. Made with a crew of just five, with no artificial lighting and no sets, the film unfolds...

Directed by Andrzej Wajda • 1975 • Poland

Adapted from the classic novel by Nobel laureate Władysław Reymont, Andrzej Wajda’s The Promised Land is a stunning period epic about Poland’s painful transition to industrial modernity. In late nineteenth-century Łódź, three friends – one Polish, one Je...

Directed by Wojciech Marczewski • 1981 • Poland

Wojciech Marczewski’s chilling, beguiling sophomore feature transports the classic coming-of-age tale to 1950s Poland. Following his father’s arrest, 13-year old Tomek (Tomasz Hudziec) is sent to a youth camp designed to indoctrinate future Communi...

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 Sándor Reisenbüchler • 1968 • Hungary

Inspired by Carpathian folklore and based on the epic poem by Ferenc Juhász, this mesmerising animated short by the great Sándor Reisenbüchler imagines a world destroyed and then rebuilt. A fearsome, seven-headed dragon swallows the sun and moon,...

Directed by Zoltán Fábri • 1956 • Hungary

Zoltán Fábri’s dizzying romance marked a turning point in post-war Hungarian cinema when it premiered at Cannes in 1956. Based on a novel by Imre Sarkadi, the film charts the travails of Mari (a star-making turn from Mari Törőcsik), a peasant girl betrot...

Directed by Dmitry Davydov • 2016 • Russia/Sakha Republic

Set in the remote reaches of the Sakha Republic, The Bonfire is a modern-day parable of guilt and redemption. Dmitry Davydov’s breakthrough film centres on Ignat (Aleksei Ustinov), an elderly craftsman whose son causes the death of his co...

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 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...

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Directed by Dragomir Sholev • 2021 • Bulgaria

When the manager of a campsite on Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast discovers yet another dolphin corpse washed up on the shoreline, he decides that enough is enough. Based on real events, Dragomir Sholev’s absurdist envi...

Directed by Michael Borodin • 2022 • Russia

Based on shocking real-life events, Michael Borodin’s feature debut is a harrowing account of the hidden world of modern slavery. Mukhabat (Zukhara Sanzysbay) is one of a group of Uzbek migrants being held against their will in the Moscow grocery store...

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 Katalin Moldovai • 2023 • Hungary

Debutante Katalin Moldovai delivers a stinging tale of conservative reaction and bureaucratic absurdity in modern Hungary. Ana (Ágnes Krasznahorkai) is a beloved literature teacher whose world is turned upside down when the powerful father of one of ...

Directed by Andrej Korovljev • 2023 • Croatia

It is 1995, just after the end of the Bosnian War. Mahir (Ermin Bravo) is a 38-year-old refugee living with hundreds of other Bosnians in a hotel-turned-makeshift shelter. His monastic existence is upended when a local high school student named Una (...

Directed by Kirill Serebrennikov • 2016 • Russia

Released a year before the politically-motivated house arrest that ultimately saw him leave Russia for good, Kirill Serebrennikov’s fierce drama of spiritual fervour now seems grimly prescient. Venya (Pyotr Skvortstov) seems like a typical maladju...

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...

Directed by Philip Sotnychenko • 2023 • Ukraine

Two gunshots, separated by a quarter of a century: Philip Sotnychenko’s elusive, enthralling debut feature uncovers the hidden connections between the violence of the past and the present. Shot in pseudo-documentary style on outdated digital camera...

Directed by Attila Dargay • 1977 • Hungary

A classic of Hungarian animation from the legendary Pannónia studio, Attila Dargay’s charming take on one of the nation’s favourite folk myths doubles as a playful anti-authoritarian rebuke. Following a cunning young goose shepherd in his efforts to get...

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Directed by Borys Ivchenko • 1972 • USSR/Ukraine

Borys Ivchenko’s fittingly surreal adaptation of an 1832 short story by Mykola Hohol, otherwise known as Nikolai Gogol, stars the irrepressible Ivan Mykolaichuk as a Zaporizhian Cossack and is full to bursting w...

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 Olesya Morgunets-Isaenko • 2022 • Ukraine

Set against a backdrop of occupation and dispossession, Olesya Morgunets-Isaenko’s seasonal wartime melodrama is a heartbreaking but inspiring insight into Ukraine’s troubled history between empires. In the town of Stanyslaviv (now Ivano-Fran...

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...

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 Damian Kocur • 2022 • Poland

Damian Kocur’s feature debut confirms his reputation as one of Poland’s most promising filmmakers. Talented pianist Tymek (Tymoteusz Bies) returns to his provincial hometown during his vacation from the Warsaw Academy of Music, and quickly falls back in w...

Directed by Ádám Császi • 2022 • Hungary

An excoriating deconstruction of liberal pieties and artistic pretensions from one of Hungary’s most exciting young filmmaking voices, Three Thousand Numbered Pieces follows the cast and crew during rehearsals for a play based on the real-life experiences...

Directed by Andrzej Wajda • 1981 • Poland

One of many peaks in the long career of the Polish maestro, Man of Iron is a sequel to Wajda’s 1977 drama Man of Marble. Winkel (Marian Opania), a disgruntled radio reporter, is sent to Gdańsk to discredit Tomczyk (Jerzy Radziwiłowicz), one of the leader...

Directed by Márta Mészáros • 1990 • Hungary

The devastating but hopeful conclusion to Márta Mészáros’s autobiographical Diary trilogy, which traces the life story of the orphan Juli (Zsuzsa Czinkóczi) through Hungary’s tumultuous post-war history. Diary for My Father and Mother sees our heroine ...

Directed by Ivo Trajkov • 2022 • Slovakia

Ivo Trajkov’s exquisitely eerie blend of period drama and folk horror explores the dark depths of patriarchal cruelty and nationalist fervour. Told in a series of flashbacks, the film recounts the last days of the rural Slovak village of Piargy. The powe...

Directed by Dito Tsintsadze • 2001 • Germany/Georgia

Dito Tsintsadze’s anarchic hitmen caper offers a delirious account of life on the fringes of the diaspora. Unfolding in the sedate German city of Mannheim, Lost Killers sees a gang of illegal immigrants go to ludicrous lengths in a frantic bid...

Directed by Dover Kosashvili • 2001 • Israel

Set in Tel Aviv’s Judeo-Georgian community and performed in their unique dialect, Dover Kosashvili’s black comedy of arranged marriage shines a light on a rarely represented culture at war with itself. 32-year-old philosophy student Zaza (Lior Ashkena...

Directed by Darezhan Omirbaev • 2001 • Kazakhstan

A metacinematic exploration of the anxieties, creativity, and delusion that drive the film director, The Road is one of the most personal films in the career of a Kazakh screen legend. Amir Kobessov (played by famous Tajik director Jamshed Usmono...

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 Bakhtyar Khudojnazarov • 1991 • USSR/Tajikistan

This restoration of the debut feature from Bakhtyar Khudojnazarov, the director who put Tajik cinema on the international map, is a gem of Central Asia film from the very end of the Soviet era. This Huckleberry Finn-style adventure foll...

Directed by Šimon Holý • 2022 • Czechia

One of the most striking new voices in Czech cinema, Šimon Holý returns with a touchingly comic take on female connection. Desperate for a way out of her loneliness, 60-something Kristýna (Pavla Tomicová) sets out for the Vysočina mountains to visit a fort...

Directed by Inna Sahakyan • 2022 • Armenia

Inna Sahakyan’s exquisite and heartbreaking animation retraces the scarcely believable biography of Aurora Mardiganian: a survivor of the Armenian Genocide who became a silent movie star. After surviving the infamous “death marches”, Mardiganian fled fr...

Directed by Miroslav Antić • 1971 • Yugoslavia

Acclaimed poet turned filmmaker Miroslav Antić made his indelible contribution to the Yugoslav Black Wave with this apocalyptic tale of love among the ruins of war and natural disaster. Set in 1947, the film captures life in a Vojvodina village duri...

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 Anna Kazejak • 2022 • Poland

Anna Kazejak’s caustic satire is a worthy addition to the canon of holidays-gone-wrong classics. A weekend camping trip on the beautiful Danish island of Bornholm quickly goes south for two couples and their children in the wake of a boyish prank taken to...

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Directed by Miodrag Popović • 1968 • Yugoslavia

Renowned painter turned filmmaker Miodrag Popović made his indelible contribution to the Yugoslav Black Wave with this harsh but humanist take on the psychic scars of war. Two brothers, Isidor (Jovan Janićijević-...

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...

Directed by Aleksandar Petrović • 1967 • Yugoslavia

One of the first films from Eastern Europe to explore the lives of the Roma in sympathetic detail, and to cast Romani-speaking Roma in order to do so, Aleksandar Petrović’s Cannes-winning classic builds a complex and humanistic narrative out of...

Directed by Arman Manaryan • 1971 • USSR/Armenia

Adapted from one of the most celebrated works of 20th-century Armenian literature, Arman Manaryan’s soulful classic reflects on love lost and the ties that bind. Following the death of his beloved but unfaithful wife Heghnar, sculptor Mkrtich (Arm...

Directed by Comes Chahbazian • 2022 • Armenia/Belgium

A haunting evocation of the distorting effect of war on a small community, Comes Chahbazian’s Notre Village (“our village”) is a vital document of life in the disputed region of Artsakh. During the chaos of the First Karabakh War in the early...

Directed by Daniel Kötter • 2022 • Armenia/Germany

Daniel Kötter’s documentary road movie journeys through the stunning but troubled mountain landscape of eastern Armenia in an attempt to unravel the relationship between war, displacement, and extractivism. Centred around the Sotk gold mine, occ...

Directed by Michael Aloyan • 2023 • Armenia

Michael Aloyan’s quietly provocative short lifts the lid on the simmering tensions lying just beneath the surface of domestic life in the Armenian diaspora of Los Angeles. During a family gathering, two boys embark on a series of escalating games that ...

Directed by Kote Kalandadze • 2022 • Georgia

The debut feature from renowned alternative musician Kote Kalandadze, The Drummer is a gritty, heartfelt portrait of creativity and desperation on the margins of modern Georgian society. Niko (Lasha Tskvitinidze) is an aspiring rock drummer in a crumb...

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 Milko Lazarov • 2018 • Bulgaria/Sakha Republic

A striking example of contemporary Sakha film – from a Bulgarian director. Milko Lazarov’s minimalist parable of generational conflict and the place of tradition in a shifting world stars Sakha screen and theatre veterans Mikhail Aprosim...

Directed by Adilkhan Yerzhanov • 2018 • Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan’s king of the offbeat and the absurd, Adilkhan Yerzhanov is at his lyrical best in this tale of innocence corrupted. When her father commits suicide, country girl Saltanat (Dinara Baktybayeva) is forced to travel to the city in search...

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 Juraj Lerotić • 2022 • Croatia

Juraj Lerotić writes, directs, and stars in this acutely moving family drama. Unfolding over 24 hours, Safe Place sees Bruno (Lerotić) and his mother (Snježana Sinovčić Šiškov) battle against a dysfunctional healthcare system and their own demons as the...

Directed by Drahomíra Vihanová • 1964 • Czechoslovakia

This striking short from Drahomíra Vihanová is an unjustly neglected gem of the Czech New Wave. Julian Dìaz stars as Fati, an African piano student at the Prague Academy, preparing for his first solo recital in the face of profound personal ...

Directed by Yuliya Sergina • 2021 • Russia

Yuliya Sergina’s debut documentary charts the unlikely, unruly rise of Viktor Toroptsev, a disgruntled taxi driver-turned-vlogger from the crumbling city of Amursk in Russia’s far east. Sergina’s fittingly rough-and-ready camera captures both the humour...