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MIFF 2019

Here we are, our favourite time of the year is upon us. Euraw Stories normally takes a break in August so you can watch the best movies from around the world – but please keep an eye on our website and the facebook page for updates regarding our next screening.

This year MIFF offers a great selection of Eastern European cinema with a special retrospective on an amazing female filmmaker, Agnieszka Holland (Spoor, screened in our 2018 program). In honour of her newest film, Mr. Jones, MIFF screens eight titles, including the Golden Globe-winning Europa Europa and her Oscar-nominated works In Darkness and Angry Harvest. We urge you to book at least one of the titles directed by Agnieszka, director of episodes in House Of Cards, The Wire, Treme.

Here are our picks of stories from the other Europe screening this year at MIFF.

MEETING GORBACHEV

Directors: André Singer, Werner Herzog / Country: Germany USA UK (2018)

The inimitable Werner Herzog presents a disarmingly personal conversation with the man who drew back the Iron Curtain, Mikhail Gorbachev.

One of the most visionary politicians of our lifetime, former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev was the architect of the opening Russia to the world. Through three extensive conversations, Herzog and long-time collaborator André Singer discover an 87-year-old statesman and Nobel Prize winner, in waning health, reflective but resolute.

These intimate exchanges are backed by interviews with the major players of the glasnost and perestroika era (including George P Shultz, James A Baker III and Lech Walesa), and illuminating archival footage. Packed with emotion – triumph, hope, regret – Meeting Gorbachev is a unique take on the political documentary. With the life story at its centre, Herzog’s film shares how a headstrong farm boy thawed the Cold War and reshaped the lives of millions.

“Confessional and sincere, Meeting Gorbachev humanizes both its creator and its subject.” – Vulture

BEANPOLE

D: Kantemir Balagov / Country: Russia 2019

From Cannes where Balagov was awarded the best director and won the Fipresci award in the Un Certain Regard section, comes an intense story about two women building new lives in the war-collapsed Leningrad of 1945.

‘Inspired by Svetlana Alexievich’s book “The Unwomanly Face of War”, “Beanpole” tells a glacially paced but gorgeously plotted story about two best friends who grow so desperate for any kind of personal agency that they start using each other to answer the unsolvable arithmetic of life and death.’

THE ORPHANAGE

Director: Shahrbanoo Sadat / Country: Germany Afghanistan Denmark 2019

Emerging Afghan filmmaker Shahrbanoo Sadat delights with an 80s-set mixture of realism and inspired Bollywood-style musical, set on the streets of Kabul.

Premiering at Cannes’ prestigious Director’s Fortnight, the second feature from rising Afghan writer/director Shahrbanoo Sadat is a follow-up to her acclaimed 2016 debut, Wolf and Sheep. Qodratollah Qadiri stars as orphan Qodrat, a daydreaming 15-year-old selling movie tickets on the streets of Kabul in the late 1980s. Taken to a Soviet orphanage by police, Qodrat and his fellow teenagers soon find themselves defending their home in the wake of the Islamist government takeover.

Mixing gorgeously lensed realism with folklore and unlikely, affectionate bursts of Bollywood musical, Sadat sensitively evokes both the interior world of her protagonist and the turbulent political climate of the era, successfully crafting a humanist experience with a dash of fantasy.

“Balances a clear-eyed re-creation of a teen’s time in an orphanage with a certain nostalgia for childhood innocence.” – Variety

SUNSET

Director: László Nemes / Country: FranceHungary (2018)

Winner of the FIPRESCI Prize at the 2018 Venice Film Festival, this allegorical mystery offers a decadent premonition of Europe in chaos.

In 1913, 20-year-old Irisz Leiter returns home to Budapest, hoping to follow in the footsteps of the milliner parents she lost tragically at age two. But a sleek businessman now runs Leiter Hats; and while the city feverishly prepares to receive the Habsburg royals, Irisz senses dark undercurrents beneath the glamour.

Just as a hat is steamed, blocked and trimmed to take on its final shape, Irisz methodically sets out to make sense of her family’s secrets. She uncovers a suspicious fire, a notorious hidden brother, a shadowy German count… and social climbers who hate inconvenient questions.

Director László Nemes follows his Oscar-winning Son of Saul with this disorienting, even hallucinatory quest. By applying his intensely subjective hand-held camera to a refined society on the brink of mayhem, Nemes reminds us how quickly certainties can unravel, and how easily tyranny can take root. He also slyly invites us to ponder Europe’s uncertain political future – every day has a sunset.

“The direction is immaculate … a stimulating vision, an eye-opening process.” – FIPRESCI

THE WHISTLERS

Director: Corneliu Porumboiu / Country: Germany France Romania (2019)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVf8QU0F2MQ

The Romanian New Wave ventures to the Canary Islands in Corneliu Porumboiu’s noir-ish crime caper, which takes more than a few cues from Hitchcock, gleefully name-checks John Ford and plays up the writer/director’s own offbeat sensibilities.

Ten years after the events of Porumboiu’s Police, Adjective, Bucharest detective Cristi is still on the job. As well as upholding the law, however, he’s also taking orders from European mobsters. To skirt the ever-listening ears of state surveillance, and to help his mafia cronies bust one of their money-laundering heavies out of jail, the wearied cop is given a new task: learning an ancestral whistling language.

Since his Camera d’Or-winning debut 12:08 East of Bucharest (MIFF 2008), Porumboiu has excelled at spinning over-sized exploits around unhappy everyman, a trend he continues in this blackly comic, thrillingly entertaining genre piece – a fast-paced blend of gangster, heist and espionage antics.

“Expands the horizons of New Romanian Cinema, offering up a sequel to social realism just as it began to get stale.” – The Playlist

Other titles worth seeing:

Take Me Somewhere Nice – Director: Ena Sendijarević/ Country: Bosnia and Herzegovina (2019)

God Exists, Her Name Is Petrunia – Director: Teona Strugar Mitevska/ Country: North Macedonia, Slovenia (2019)

Once In Trubcevsk – Director: Larissa Sadilova/ Country: Russia (2019)

The Trial – Director: Sergei Loznitsa/ Country: Ukraine (2018)

And Then We Danced – Director: Levan Akin/ Country: Georgia (2019)

Romanian feast – street food, film and music

Eastern European parties tend to be memorable. We aim for nothing less this coming Saturday with our final screening for the year – a party to remember. And we worked hard to bring you an immersive feast.

It so happens that 1 December is Romania’s National Day. So we had double the reasons to celebrate. Here’s what we have in store for you.

Romanian street food

Romanian street food aromas will greet you on arrival as we are making mici, a delicious Romanian cuisine staple. This delicious skinless sausage is best enjoyed on a skewer, slathered in mustard. This is your chance to take your taste buds on a journey without leaving Melbourne.

Black comedy to delight you

One of the best, funniest, most representative Romanian films – Tales from the golden age. The communist era, also known as the ‘golden age’ in communist-speak, certainly sparked people’s imagination when it came to dealing with the restrictions imposed on their freedom. Tales is a collection of six short black comic films, each more truer than the other. Talk to any Romanian who lived through communist times, and they will confirm this for you. We will screen three of these short features, so we can leave some time for eating and dancing. The rest to come early next year.

Gypsy local tunes

Vardos is a Melbourne-based band, who have learned their tunes from Roma (Gyspy) musicians during their Eastern European travels. They do it so well, you will find it hard to sit still. They’re going to join us after the screening to further transport us into Eastern Europe.

We’ve had a great year at our new venue, The Loop Project and Space Bar, and we’d love to see it off in style.

Book your tickets now for a great night out.

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.

New Team Members

Thank you all for turning up to last week’s AGM. We’re absolutely thrilled that Euraw team is growing and new members are jumping at the opportunity to get involved.

Thank you for all your help as Treasurer in 2017 Dora Ilov, and all the best with your new job. We’ll see you at our screenings anyway. Announcing with this occasion our new Treasurer extraordinaire, Ana-Maria Trailescu, member for the last year and now on Euraw Inc’s Board of directors.

We’re also very happy to welcome on our team two Euraw Stories members, Zoran Vasic and Tom Danby, who offered their support with project coordination. We’re looking forward to your input and creative ideas for 2018!

There’s always room for more on our friendly team. We’ve got a great new home that’s giving us the freedom to introduce more items into our schedule. We’d love some help with catering, guests programming and fund raising. Don’t be shy, come to chat to us at our screenings or drop us a line.

Contact stories@euraw.com.au

Euяaw Inc Annual General Meeting

Hello Euяaw Stories pass holders, we would like to thank you for your support in 2017 and invite you to the 2018 Euяaw Inc. AGM, on Sunday the 28th of January from 12:00-14:00, at Loop Roof just above our new venue.

On the agenda:

2017 rundown and wrap up
changes in the Board structure
what’s on for 2018: program, events, ideas
who does what, how, when, and with what support
chat, drink, socialise

All pass holders (including new ones) are welcome to get involved in Euяaw Inc and help our events grow bigger and run better. Or just join us over drinks and hear what we’re about to do in 2018.

RSVP required, either via email at stories@euraw.com.au or on the event page on Facebook.

See you soon at the Loop Roof!

We’ve Got A New Home

Our new home for 2018 is one of the most eclectic event spaces in Melbourne.

Loop Performance Space and Bar is nested in an iconic graffiti clad laneway, at 23 Meyers Place, Melbourne, a two minute walk from Parliament Train Station, in between Bourke Street and Little Collins Street.

It sports a floor to ceiling screen, an alfresco area, a fully licensed bar and a rooftop terrace. It’s the perfect place to watch a movie while you sip on a beverage and nibble some Euraw snacks.

Check the main VENUE page for more details and how to get there.

See you at the Loop!

MIFF 2017

For three weeks in August the Melbourne cinemas open their doors to films from all over the world at Melbourne International Film Festival. See our pick of Storie From The Other Europe.

LOVELESS

D Andrey Zvyagintsev | FranceBelgiumGermanyRussia (2017)

From the director of Elena screened at Euraw Stories last year, comes “a razor-sharp portrayal of a marriage in a state of collapse, Andrey Zvyagintsev’s searing drama was awarded top prize at the Munich Film Festival as well as the Jury Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Boris and Zhenya’s relationship is all but over. Caught in a spiral of vicious slanging matches and eager to be in the company of their new lovers, the only thing keeping them together is their 12-year-old son, Alyosha. When he doesn’t come home one night, the sparring couple are forced into an increasingly desperate search, with the lovelessness of their marriage mirrored by the indifference of the society around them.”

SPOOR

D Agnieszka Holland | PolandGermanySwedenCzech RepublicSlovakia (2017)

“Agnieszka Holland, one of Poland’s most distinguished directors, won the Berlinale’s Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize with this feminist, ecological thriller sprinkled with surreal touches.

Duszejko is a retired engineer living in a log cabin in a remote, mountainous corner of rural Poland. Obsessed with astrology, and ferociously protective of the local wildlife – especially when it comes to the area’s deer hunters, who have the police and even the church on their side – Duszejko is aghast when her dogs go missing and, in the following months, a series of hunters are found dead. Could nature itself be taking revenge?”

JUPITER’S MOON

D Kornél Mundruczó | GermanyHungary (2017)

“The superhero genre collides with the rolling tragedy of Europe’s refugee crisis in previous Cannes award-winner Kornél Mundruczó’s action-packed assault on tribalism, human indecency and the basic laws of gravity.

Aryan is a Syrian refugee trying to make the dangerous journey from Serbia into Hungary – and the protection of the EU. When he’s shot by an overzealous immigration cop as he crosses the border, Aryan suddenly discovers he can fly. It’s a power that could change everything for him and his family, but people fear what they don’t know, and the authorities will do whatever they need in order to neutralise a perceived threat.”

THE TEACHER

D Jan Hřebejk | Czech RepublicSlovakia (2016)

“Jan Hřebejk returns to MIFF with a darkly funny Czech primary school take on 12 Angry Men, featuring an award-winning turn by Zuzana Maurery as the titular teacher.

In the dying days of communist Czechoslovakia, the chilling Comrade Drazdechova (Zuzana Maurery) rules over her high school with cunning and corruption. The rules are simple: you help her out, your children do well. You don’t? Well, life can be hard for those deemed enemies of the state. But hers is a fragile empire, and when she tries to blackmail the wrong parent, those she’s wronged rise up against her.”

ANA MON AMOUR

D Călin Peter Netzer | Romania (2017)

From the Director of Child’s Pose screened in April at Euraw Stories comes a new, “intellectually complex, emotionally harrowing dissection of the travails of a long-term relationship.” – Screen Daily

In a psychoanalyst’s clinic, Toma recounts the euphoria and dysfunction of his relationship with Ana; their shared affection and desire whittled away by her depressive tendencies and his issues with jealousy and control, each seemingly doomed to repeat their own parents’ destructive dynamics.”

LOVING VINCENT

D Dorota KobielaHugh Welchman | UKPoland (2017)

“Over 62,000 oil paintings and a cast including Chris O’Dowd and Saoirse Ronan bring the story of Vincent Van Gogh’s life and death to the screen in the world’s first feature-length painted animation.

It sounds mad: inspired by a letter Vincent Van Gogh penned in the week before he died, in which he noted that “we cannot speak other than by our paintings”, Oscar-winning filmmaker Hugh Welchman (Peter and the Wolf) and Polish painter Dorota Kobiela decided to make a movie doing exactly that. Hiring an army of painters from across Europe, each trained in the Dutch master’s style, they set out to tell his story the way he himself would. Consequently, every single frame of the resulting film, Loving Vincent, is an oil painting (12 per second!); the noir-like detective plot is drawn from the artist’s many letters; and the cast – O’Dowd and Ronan alongside Douglas Booth, Helen McCrory, Aidan Turner and more, with music by Clint Mansell – were chosen based on their likeness to real-life characters in Van Gogh’s works.”

Other titles worth seeing:

AFTERIMAGE – Poland (2016) D Andrej Wajda

A GENTLE CREATURE – Lithuania (2017) D Sergei Loznitsa

HOSTAGES – Georgia/ Russia/ Poland (2017) D Rezo Gigineishvili

LIBERATION DAY – Latvia/ Poland (2016) D Morten Traavik

THE LAST FAMILY – Poland (2016) D Jan P. Matuszyński

WESTERN – Bulgaria (2017) D Valeska Grisebach

We Singing Colors Performing Live Through Stoneclap

For our end of the year screening party, this Saturday, we’ve joined forces with our friends from Stoneclap to bring you the lovely Romanian band We Singing Colors. They’ll perform live for us from, ahem, Bucharest!

You wonder how? Stoneclap enables musicians and DJs to perform live for audiences anywhere in the world over a two-way streaming platform designed for music that feels as if they were in the room. Think Skype but with top notch studio sound quality. Stoneclap hopes to connect cultures through intimate, live performances across the world.

An indie-pop band from Bucharest, We Singing Colors have played all over Romania, as well Moldova, Bulgaria, Spain, India and most recently Australia where they played an intimate performance over Stoneclap to an adoring audience in Melbourne.

This is a not to be missed event: a great movie, food, drinks and the soon to be on everyone’s laptops at house parties, the Stoneclap platform.

And on top of this, entry is free for all! See you there!

Goodbye for now Nadia

Our lovely Treasurer Nadia Cranganu and one of the founders of Euraw Inc, has been so inspired by the stories on screen that she decided to move to Eastern Europe.

Thank you Nadia for all the amazing work you put into starting EuRaw, for spreading the word, for taking great photos at each event, for all the spirit and energy you brought to this project. It wouldn’t have happened without you. We are really excited about your decision and can’t wait to hear your stories. All the best and don’t forget us!