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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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 p...

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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 c...

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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...

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...

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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 rehear...

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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...

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...

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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 i...

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...

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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 Kobess...

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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 b...

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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 Sovi...

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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) s...

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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...

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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, ...

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...

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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 the...

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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 (Jova...

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...

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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 ...

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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. Durin...

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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 ex...

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 ...

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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 Ts...

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...

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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 dysfunctio...

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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 fi...

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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 fitting...

Directed by Jan Švankmajer • 1990 • Czechoslovakia

Czech animator Jan Švankmajer is a living legend, his alternately grotesque, heartfelt, and hilarious creations influencing a generation of artists. In this satirical short, commissioned by the BBC shortly after the Velvet Revolution had brought...

Directed by Sergei Dvortsevoy • 1998 • Russia

Once a week, a passing train delivers bread to the isolated population of Township No. 3, a dilapidated hamlet outside of St Petersburg. And every week, the ailing pensioners who now populate this abandoned labour commune push the decoupled carriage ...

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 Alex Kvatashidze • 2016 • Georgia

Georgian photographer and journalist Alex Kvatashidze searches for meaning in the tragedies and triumphs of his life in this reflective documentary about the men and women who make war their livelihoods. From his naive initial decision to follow a Fr...

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Directed by Aktan Arym Kubat • 2022 • Kyrgyzstan

The latest feature from a modern master of Krygyz film, This Is What I Remember is a quiet reckoning with a life lived in self-imposed exile. The director himself stars as Zarlyk, an elderly man wh...

Directed by Volodymyr Denysenko • 1968 • USSR/Ukraine

Volodymyr Denysenko’s searing partisan drama is a neglected masterpiece of Soviet Ukrainian cinema. Recounting a partisan attack on a Nazi officer and the brutal recriminations that follow, Vasyl Zemliak’s quasi-autobiographical script draws ...

Directed by Hamo Bek-Nazaryan • 1928 • USSR/Armenia/Azerbaijan

To celebrate the centenary of Armenian film, we present a new restoration of this neglected silent classic by Hamo Bek-Nazaryan, the founding father of the nation’s cinema. A co-production of the Armenian and Azerbaijani national stu...

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Directed by Ihor Ivanko • 2022 • Ukraine

In the 1960s and ‘70s, films shot by Ukrainian cinematographer Leonid Burlaka for the Odesa Film Studio were known to millions across the USSR. Today, suffering with Alzheimer’s, he has lost touch with the...

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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 d...

Directed by Călin Peter Netzer • 2017 • Romania

From Berlinale-winning director Călin Peter Netzer (Child’s Pose), this intricate and intimate dissection of a long-term relationship is one of the most striking Romanian films of the 2010s. Charting the heady highs and agonising lows of the romanc...

Directed by Radu Jude • 2018 • Romania

Radu Jude’s incendiary assault on nationalist myth-making and historical hypocrisy represents a high point in one of Romanian cinema’s most compelling careers. This meta-fictional film follows theatre director Mariana (Ioana Iacob) as she attempts to stage...

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Directed by Dalibor Matanić • 2015 • Croatia

Dalibor Matanić weaves together three tales of love across the ethnic divides of the former Yugoslavia in this Cannes-winning drama. Structured as three distinct narratives each set a decade apart in t...

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Directed by Agnieszka Smoczyńska • 2018 • Poland

Two years after she wandered up the railway tracks into Warsaw’s main train station, an anonymous amnesiac woman who calls herself Alicja is unexpectedly reunited with her lost family. But the anar...

Directed by Angelina Nikonova • 2011 • Russia

Marina (co-writer Olga Dykhovichnaya) lives a stable, prosperous, and somewhat boring life with a husband and a job as a social worker. Everything changes, however, when a violent sexual assault turns her life on its head, transforming her into a “tw...

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Directed by Cristi Puiu • 2010 • Romania

After bringing international acclaim to the Romanian New Wave with The Death of Mr Lăzărescu, Cristi Puiu returned with this stunning and enigmatic portrait of urban unease and masculinity in crisis. The d...

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Directed by Miroslav Terzić • 2019 • Serbia

Based on true events, Miroslav Terzić’s Stitches reckons with a forgotten trauma from the time of Yugoslavia’s collapse. Ana (a remarkable Snežana Bogdanović) is a Belgrade seamstress who is haunted b...

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...

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Directed by Vakhtang Tabliashvili and Shalva Gedevanishvili • 1948 • USSR/Georgia

Georgia’s first musical, Keto and Kote is a baroque love story about the triumph of youth and ingenuity over cynicism and greed. Keto (Medea Japaridze), the daughter...

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Directed by Zaza Khalvashi • 2017 • Georgia

The final film completed by veteran director Zaza Khalvashi before his death in 2020, Namme is a meditation on tradition and modernity that makes exquisite use of Georgia’s mountain landscapes. At its h...

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Directed by Eldar Shengelaia • 2017 • Georgia

Shengelaia’s first film for 21 years is a late-career return to form that picks up the threads of his earlier satires and reconfigures them for the modern day. Minister for Refugee Evictions Giorgi Mc...

Directed by Eldar Shengelaia • 1973 • USSR/Georgia

Shengelaia’s most surreal feature, the suitably-titled Eccentrics spins the tall tale of Ertaoz (Demno Jgenti), an orphan who goes to jail for the sake of his lover. There he encounters renegade prisoner and latter-day Da Vinci, Qristopore (Vasi...

Directed by Eldar Shengelaia and Tamaz Meliava • 1963 • USSR/Georgia

Eldar Shengelaia’s first mature feature, co-directed with Tamaz Meliava, is a forceful, poetic take on the timeless conflict between the countryside and the city, reminiscent of Murnau’s silent classic Sunrise. The tragic plot ...