Eastern Europe

Street cats, islands of light, flings, losses, and con- scriptions. From the people of Odesa and their cats, whom Eva Neymann portrays with gentle care, she seeks to uncover their dreams when war destroys all certainty.

INTERCEPTED

2024 Gotham Award nominee for Best Documentary. After the February 2022 invasion, Ukrainian Security Services released intercepted phone calls from Russian soldiers to their families — sharing their innermost fears, contempt for Ukrainians, and hopes for a swift victory. Juxtaposing exceprts from these conversations with images of life in Ukraine, Intercepted evokes a vivid, haunting tableaux of war, and the psychological disconnect between oppressors and the lives they’ve destroyed.

A PICTURE TO REMEMBER

A Picture to Remember is an essayistic account of a family's long journey through the war. It chronicles the search for a way to handle terrible and recurring losses experienced by three generations of Ukrainian women-those of the director, her mother, and that of her grandmother. The Kyiv-based filmmaker uses old family films in her attempt to bridge the distance between her and her grandmother in Donetsk.

WE WILL NOT FADE AWAY

Written and directed by Ukranian filmmaker Alisa Kovalenko, We Will Not Fade Away is a tender and emotional multi-portrait of five Ukrainian teenagers, trapped in the war zone in Donbas, who dream of freedom and discovering the world outside. Andriy, Lisa, Ruslan, Lera and Illia grew up in small coal mining towns, right on the front line. They fight against the boredom and the multiple frustrations of finding out who you are.

WHEN SPRING CAME TO BUCHA

In early 2022, after Russian troops withdrew from the Kyiv region, the small town of Bucha, completely destroyed, became a symbol of the war and Russian war crimes. How do people live there now – after experiencing such trauma? This powerful documentary allows the survivors to share their stories – stories about destroyed lives, but also about humanity and hope – as the war in Ukraine continues to rage on.

THIS RAIN WILL NEVER STOP

This Rain Will Never Stop takes the audience on a powerful, visually arresting journey through humanity’s endless cycle of war and peace. The film follows 20-year-old Andriy Suleyman as he tries to secure a sustainable future while navigating the human toll of armed conflict. From the Syrian civil war to strife in Ukraine, Andriy’s existence is framed by the seemingly eternal flow of peace and violence.

EVERYTHING WILL NOT BE FINE

Adrian was born in the year of the Chernobyl accident and his mother always believed that his partial blindness was caused by her visit to Ukraine while she was six months pregnant. Upon learning this, Adrian and his friend, a woman from Kiev also affected by the disaster, set out to meet people dealing with the effects of what happened in 1986. They discover the immense scale of Chernobyl’s impact on a new generation.

BROTHERHOOD

Jabir, Usama and Useir, are three young Bosnian brothers, who grew up in the shadow of their father, a strict Islamist preacher. When he gets sentenced to two years in prison, for terrorism, the three brothers are suddenly left alone. They can explore the newly acquired freedom on the difficult journey to becoming men. Brotherhood is an exploration of youth, manhood and search for identity.

ANASTASIA

This powerful documentary short spotlights the life of Russian civil rights activist Anastasia Shevchenko as she faces the brutal repercussions of speaking out against her government. Shevchenko endured house arrest for two years, and became the first person found guilty of “organizing activity of an undesirable organization” by a Russian court for her work with the Open Russia movement. Amnesty International declared her a “prisoner of conscience.”

RED AFRICA

A fascinating and insightful documentary, Red Africa relates the history of the influence exerted by the USSR over many African states between 1960 and 1990. Incorporating extraordinary archival footage filmed by Soviet operators, excerpts from official speeches by Soviet and African leaders and audio recording made by Soviet filmmakers during their African expeditions, Red Africa reveals the hidden agenda of the USSR which, under the cloak of generosity, was aspiring to expand its socialist “paradise."

1970

1970. Striking workers in communist Poland demonstrate against price increases. In the dignitaries’ offices, tension and violent repression grow as the revolt intensifies. Using stop motion animation to bring the telephone recordings to life, Tomasz Wolski composes a highly precise and prodigious film that looks at labor and rebellion, but told from the perspective of the oppressors.

THE LOAD

During NATO’s bombing of Serbia in 1999, a truck driver is hired to undertake a treacherous journey across his war-torn country to deliver mysterious cargo. Brilliantly photographed and overwhelmingly atmospheric - recalling Clouzot's The Wages of Fear and Friedkin's Sorcerer - The Load is a taut suspense thriller about the choices we make in difficult times.

INFINITE FOOTBALL

In his masterful new documentary, Corneliu Porumboiu, a leading figure in the Romanian New Wave, introduces us to a former soccer star and current local bureaucrat whose dream of radically revolutionizing his beloved sport masks an attempt to understand far greater issues: functioning societies, social systems, fate, freedom, individual responsibility and utopianism.

THE DEAD NATION

A work of startling power and originality, acclaimed director Radu Jude’s documentary-essay examines the rise of anti-Semitism in Romania prior to and during World War II almost entirely through the diary of a Jewish doctor in Bucharest juxtaposed with recently unearthed photographs of provincial life in Romania between the years of 1937 and 1944.

STARTING POINT

A pilot program in which female prisoners work at a nursing home for the elderly and disabled while serving out their sentences.