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.

TALES FROM THE GOLDEN AGE – December 1st

Romania 2009
Comedy/Short Films 2'35 min
PG
Directors: Cristian Mungiu, Ioana Uricaru, Hanno Höfer, 
           Constantin Popescu
Cast: Vlad Ivanov, Ion Sapdaru, Viorel Comanici

Tales from the Golden Age consists of six short films from the same historical period and following the same narrative pattern.
The screenplays have, as starting point, Romanian urban legends from the late communist period – popular and humoresque stories believed to be true. Comic, bizarre, surprising, these myths drew on the often surreal events of everyday life under the communist regime. Humour is what kept Romanians alive, and Tales from the Golden Age aims to re-capture that mood, portraying the survival of a nation having to face every day the twisted logic of a dictatorship.
The last 15 years of Nicolae Ceauşescu’s regime were the worst in Romania’s history. Nonetheless, the propaganda machine of that time referred without fail to that period as The Golden Age.

The shorts were screened at the Un Certain Regard section at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival and are meant to be watched in no particular order.

Book tickets for this screening.

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

LIZA, THE FOX FAIRY – November 17th

Hungary 2015
Comedy 1'30 min
PG
Director: Károly Ujj Mészáros
Cast: Monika Balsai, David Sakurai

Liza, a timid nurse takes care of Marta, the widow of a Japanese Ambassador to Hungary for 12 years. On her 30th birthday Liza goes to a McDonald’s to find romance.
During her short leave Marta gets killed by Liza’s imaginary friend, Toni Tani, a late Japanese pop singer from the 70’s. Relatives report Liza to the police, for murdering Marta to inherit her apartment. Ensign Zoltan is put on the case. The policeman moves into Liza’s apartment as a lodger to keep an eye on his suspect. Zoltan secretly repairs all the faulty household equipments, suffering close to lethal accidents while falling in love with Liza.
Liza gets more confident and really attractive as she begins to read women’s magazines, but all her efforts finding a date fail due to deadly accidents, arranged by Toni Tani.
Liza gets convinced that she has turned into a Fox-Fairy, a deadly demon from Japanese fairy-tales.
The battle begins for Liza’s life between the mysterious pop singer and Ensign Zoltan.

Book tickets for this screening.

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

ON THE OTHER SIDE – OCTOBER 20TH

Serbia/Croatia 2016
Drama 1'25 min
M
Director: Zrinko Ogresta
Cast: Ksenija Marcovic,Lazar Ristovski

Vesna is a middle-aged visting nurse in Zagreb. She goes about her quiet daily life: babysitting for her son, helping her daughter to prepare for her wedding. Out of the blue, she gets a call from her husband Zarko, who left his family on the eve of the war to fight for “the other side”. His reappearance sends her carefully reconstructed life in a tailspon, endangering her new identity…

EASY – September 15th

Italy/Ukraine 2017
Road Movie 1'30 min
PG
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 
M
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 
M
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.