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EASY – September 15th

Italy/Ukraine 2017
Road Movie 1'30 min

Director: Andrea Magnani
Cast: Nicola Nocella

Isidoro, aka Easy, is depressed. His career as a car racer golden boy stopped when he couldn’t fit in his car anymore, after he piled too much weight. One day, his brother comes to him with a job: drive a coffin with the body of an Ukrainian bricklayer, from Italy to Ukraine. Unfortunately, he might go by the name of Easy, but for him nothing is, and he will soon get lost.

Book tickets for this screening.

Screening at Loop Project Space & Bar, 23 Meyers Pl, Melbourne

Our 5 MIFF picks

Every August Euraw Stories takes a break while Melbourne gets its movie fix at the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF). MIFF is on for the next two weeks starting today and, as always, there is something for everyone in its movie mix. Here are some films we wouldn’t want you to miss.

Mug – Poland

Polish films have been some of our favourites at Euraw Stories. Mug is bound to be a win. It won the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at Berlin and it really doesn’t need much selling. It’s about metalhead construction worker Jackek, who is at work building the tallest statue of Jesus (inspired by the real-life Jesus monument in Swiebodzin). After a fall, Jacek becomes Poland’s first face transplant recipient and the country is not quite ready for it. Read more and buy your ticket here.

Scary Mother – Georgia

Ana Urushadze is billed to be the new talent to watch in Georgian filmmaking. Scary mother won her the Best First Feature at Locarno and it’s a beautifully shot and ambitious film who has Manana, a fifty-year old woman in a communist-era apartment, at its centre. Manana makes decisions that break with conservative society rules and leave her family enraged. The film gets more and more surrealist and it progresses, so if you’re an adventurous cinephile, this one’s for you. Read more and buy your ticket.

Chris the Swiss – Croatia

This animated feature tells the story surrounding the death of the filmmaker’s cousin, a Swiss reporter whose body was found in Croatia during the Yugoslav wars, wearing the uniform of an international mercenary group. Director and animator Anja Kofmel uses private notebooks and radio reports to investigate the events surrounding the death. A beautiful animated elegy of war reporting. Read more and buy your ticket.

Donbass – Ukraine

This is a must see for anyone if you want to get a glimpse Ukraine during recent years. Donbass won the prestigious Un Certain Regard for Bets Director at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. With black humour and skillful social commentary, Sergei Loznitsa paints a picture through vignettes. Read more and buy your ticket.

The dead nation – Romania

Director Radu Jude raises the mirror at Romania’s history of fascism and brutality during WWII. He uses images recently discovered by photographer Costica Acsinte, and audio from the diaries of Jewish doctor Emil Dorian. Read more and buy your ticket.

Enjoy your MIFF international film oddysey and we’ll see you in September, when we’re screening Easy.

SPOOR – JULY 21

Poland 2017
Detective 1'30 min 

Director: Agnieszka Holland, Katarzyna Adamik
Cast: Agnieszka Mandat-Grabka

Janina Duszejko, a former engineer, an astrologist and vegetarian, lives in a small picturesque village in the Sudeten Mountains. One night, she stumbles on the dead body of a neighbour. The poacher died a mysterious death. There are traces of roe deer hooves around his house…

In time, dead bodies of the local VIPs are discovered. All of them were hunters. Duszejko tries to convince the local police force that they were murdered by wild animals. As another VIPs is found dead, Duszejko becomes the main suspect.

When the local parish house burns down and the priest and chaplain of the local hunting association dies in flames, the police are almost certain who did it…

This subtly humorous story of friendship, love of nature and vengeance, with unique, ambiguous characters will be a mixture of high-end and low-end genres from psychological drama to pastiche-like detective story.

Book tickets for this screening.

Screening at Loop Project Space & Bar, 23 Meyers Pl, Melbourne

Which side are you on?

Sports rivalries can bring out the best and the worst in people. You might find yourself accidentally hugging someone on the opposite side of the political spectrum, just because you both barrack for Collingwood. Anyone who is not with you is against you during a heated game.

To get you in the mood for our next screening, we compiled a list of some of the most famous sports rivalries.

Collingwood vs Carlton – probably the most publicised AFL rivalry is the one that started in 1892 between blue collar Collingwood and white collar Carlton. Wikipedia unbiasedly informs us the two teams played each other in finals six times. Carlton won five of those finals.

Barcelona vs Real Madrid – OK, this one is not in Australia, but you don’t have to live in Europe, be into soccer, or even into sport, to have heard about this historic rivalry. When they face each other, it’s not just a soccer match; their annual confrontations are now known as El Clásico – arguably the most awaited match of the year.

Melbourne Victory vs Melbourne City – This is the rivalry that The New Daily calls the ‘ultimate rivalry in Australian sport‘ – each game between the two teams brings to the stadium around 50,000 eager fans.

The Ashes – this cricket test is between historic rivals Australia and England. Why is it called the Ashes? After Australia won the test in 1882, a sporting newspaper wrote that the body of English cricket had been “cremated and the remains taken to Australia”. The Ashes urn may or may not contain the remains of the burnt cricket ball.

Muhammad Ali vs Joe Frazier aka The Fight of the Century – this one’s an oldie, but it lives on in many people’s memories, even if only through hearsay. What was so unforgettable about this fight? For the first time, two previously undefeated boxers were facing each other. And one for the quizmasters. Who won? Joe Frazier in 15 rounds.

You really don’t have to be into sports at all to enjoy the spectacle behind these rivalries. We hope they have you ready for the international soccer fan immersion we have in store for you next Saturday. Vuvuzelas might be a bit much for the space, but you can whistle to your hearts’ content.

Next Saturday, 5pm on 16 June at the Loop Project Space and Bar, we are screening ZG80, a film about the legendary rivalry between Dinamo Zagreb and Red Star Belgrade. Buy your tickets for our next screening.

ZG80 – June 16th

Croatia 2016
Comedy 1'30 min 

Director: Igor Šeregi
Cast: Rene Bitorajac, Matija Kačan, Marko Cindrić

https://vimeo.com/197296263

ZG80 is an action comedy about one of the greatest rivalries in football fans history – the one between football fans Bad Blue Boys (football club “Dinamo“, Zagreb, Croatia) and Delije (football club “Red star“ Belgrade, Serbia).

In a dawn of Yugoslavia war, football hooligans from Zagreb went to game in Belgrade, Serbia, home of their favourite enemies “Delije“ of football club “Red star“. This is a story of a friendship, loyalty and a senselessness of politics and war in former Yugoslavia.

Book tickets for this screening.

Screening at Loop Project Space & Bar, 23 Meyers Pl, Melbourne on June the 16th, doors open at 5:00 pm.

The odyssey continues. Next stop – Bulgaria

We went home and scoured our mothers’, aunts’ and neighbours’ memories for what would make a good Bulgarian food staple to introduce to you. We are happy to announce that this month’s featured delicacy is … drum roll … the Bulgarian banitsa – a coil of traditional cheese and yogurt pastry.

The banitsa you can taste at our next screening on 19 May will be prepared with love by Lars Caterers (who have been so very supportive of our experimentation); they are making individual twisted cheese pies with filo pastry, topped with yogurt and parsley.

The accompanying film is Uncle Tony, Three Fools and the Secret Service, a revealing documentary about how Bulgaria has dealt (or not dealt) with secret security files post-communism.

So come and eat some banitsa with us, watch a film, break some barriers. Saturday 19 May from 5pm at Loop Project and Space Bar. Book your ticket now.

UNCLE TONY, THREE FOOLS AND THE SECRET SERVICE – MAY 19TH

BULGARIA 2013
Documentary 1'27 min 

Director: Mina Mileva & Vesela Kazakova

Uncle Tony, Three Fools and the Secret Service is a feature documentary debut for Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova, made without state funding for production and dedicated to Mina’s animation teacher and outstanding animator Antony Trayanov/Uncle Tony.

The film became a mirror for a post-communist society that hasn’t dealt with the role of the totalitarian Secret Service in recent history – a role that commands daily life till nowadays and creates a complex political problem. Bulgaria hasn’t had a proper lustration process and the dossiers are still closed allowing many former agents and informers to take high political positions.

The authors of the film, subjected to threats and intimidation, were also attacked within their own Film Guild. Official letters were exchanged by the main institutions with the aim to prevent distribution. The Ministry of Culture, FILMAUTOR, CEM (the Council for Electronic Media), the Bulgarian National Television, the Union of Bulgarian Filmmakers and the tax authorities each responded with their own position and contacted the production company Activist 38 for relevant inspections. The copyright society FILMAUTOR illegitimately revoked the contract with Activist 38 and as result the Bulgarian National Television refused to air the film.
This campaign was triggered also by the fact that the film was seen as defaming several prominent directors from the past amongst whom the legendary Donio Donev. Donev, a brilliant animation director, whom Uncle Tony worked alongside with, is perhaps the best known name of Bulgarian cinema. He was also an informer for the Secret Service.

The controversy caused by the film was covered by the main media of the country and some international editions too. The European organisations EDN (European Documentary Network), EAVE (European Audiovisual Entrepreneurs) and Cineuropa published support articles. An intellectual group at home created a Facebook page in support of the film entitled: Please sign in support of freedom of speech, expression and thinking in Bulgaria.

Despite attempts to discontinue screening the film, it was shown in the cinemas in Sofia for several months, which marks an unprecedented longevity for a homegrown documentary film.

Book tickets for this screening.

Screening at Loop Project Space & Bar, 23 Meyers Pl, Melbourne

Soft tasty kolache, Czech beer and a black comedy

No cultural immersion is complete without some traditional food. To make the Czech experience more wholesome, we went on a search to find the right culinary match for The Teacher, the Czech film we are screening this Saturday. And guess what? We found the only place in the whole of Melbourne that makes kolache – the traditional Czech soft bun. Kolache Cravings from Melbourne’s North were thrilled to come on board and help us feed you.

If you haven’t heard of kolache before, don’t wait any longer to try them. We did, and could barely stop at one. Phil and Nona use only the best and free-rangest eggs and meats to make them, and a traditional artisanal method to ensure the bun stays soft and dreamy, while still low on sugar.

On the menu this Saturday we have:

kranski and cheese kolache
plum poppy seed and cream cheese kolache
an entertaining Czech dark comedy, The Teacher.

If you get thirsty, the Loop Bar serves Czech beer and special cocktails for only $12 for our guests. What’s there to decide? Book your tickets for this screening and join us this Saturday at the Loop Bar in Meyers Place.

The Teacher – April 28th

CZECH REPUBLIC 2016
Comedy 1'42 min 

Director: Jan Hřebejk
Cast: Zuzana Mauréry, Peter Bebjak, Zuzana Konecná

“From Oscar-nominated writer/director Jan Hřebejk (Divided We Fall), THE TEACHER is a wildly entertaining black comedy inspired by the true story of a Communist-era school teacher who manipulated her pupils and their families for unprecedented personal gain.

The early 1980s, Czechoslovakia. At the start of a new term at a suburban high school, a seemingly empathetic and kind new teacher, the middle-aged Maria Drazděchová greets her class. She asks them to introduce themselves and share what their parents do for a living, explaining that it’s important to know how their parents might collectively help the group. Soon after, she gradually begins to pressure both students and parents by seeking favours – grocery collection, handyman assistance, lifts and haircuts – and connecting them with special treatment in class and, most significantly, good grades.

Before long Maria’s demands grow more complex and dangerous, so when a serious incident finally draws her unscrupulous behaviour to her colleagues, the principal calls a secret meeting, seeking parents to sign a petition to move “Comrade Drazděchová” on from the school. But her high connections with the Communist Party hang above everyone in the room, and it’s soon evident that standing up for what’s right may be much easier said than done.

With production design and cinematography that recreates the era to wonderful effect, THE TEACHER delivers a timeless and universal story of opportunism, bias and human dignity. Laced with wicked humour and standout performances, this rousing morality tale employs a delicate touch to skewer not only the complications of communism, but the human characteristics that ensure it never quite works out as expected.” (Palace Films)

Book tickets for this screening.

Screening at Loop Project Space & Bar, 23 Meyers Pl, Melbourne