In true European style, Hier is a coproduction between 6 countries, directed by a Hungarian, with a Romanian lead actor, spoken in French and English, and shot in Morocco. It’s also known by three names: French – Hier, English – Yesterday, Hungarian – Tegnap.
Hungary, France, Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, Morocco 2018
Drama 1’59 min
Director: Bálint Kenyeres
Languages: French
The central character, 50-year-old Victor Ganz owns a thriving building and civil engineering company that operates worldwide. Some very costly problems on a building site in North Africa mean he has to go there (he hates traveling), to a country where he is confronted with memories of his youth, which have been carefully buried in the depths of his mind. Meetings in ministries, disinformation, the reappearance of a past love who had mysteriously disappeared, an investigation in the local underground to find her: Victor Ganz slowly plunges into a labyrinthine world where present and past intertwine.
Germany/ Czech Republic 2013 Adventure/ Comedy 1’30 min Director: Markus Dietrich Languages: German
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnicT2UGQD4
For ten-year-old Friederike October 1989 gets off to a disastrous start: her beloved Uncle Mike (27) is expelled from the GDR and has to leave the country within 48 hours. Inspired by her big idol Captain Burgh, Friederike and her friends Jonathan (10) and Fabian (10) construct a teleporting machine to “beam” her uncle Mike back to the GDR. But the experiment dramatically fails. Instead of successfully beaming the three kids across, the entire village population disappears! For a moment it seems that Frederike and her friends are the last remaining kids on earth. But TV proves what Frederike had immediately suspected: they have managed to beam everybody but themselves to West Berlin. They witness on TV how their families and friends desperately try to climb back over the Wall to their home country. Only quick thinking and action can undo the experiment and prevent the worst from happening before the border guards open fire. A race against time and the nasty local policeman Mauder begins.
A locked door inside a Belgrade apartment has kept one family separated from their past for over 70 years. As the filmmaker begins an intimate conversation with her mother, the political fault line running through their home reveals a house and a country haunted by history. The chronicle of a family in Serbia turns into a searing portrait of an activist in times of great turmoil, questioning the responsibility of each generation to fight for their future.
Serbia 2018
Documentary 1’44 min
Director: Mila Turajlić
Languages: Serbian
FROM THE DIRECTOR
I want to speak of my country from a very personal angle, and from a very precise point of departure – the place where I live. The more I stare at the locked doors that I have been faced with all my life, the more I realize how much about Serbia can be understood by talking about divided spaces.
The plot of the film grows like a spiral: A personal investigation into divided space (unfolds) a family chronicle (which becomes) an account of turbulent times (that ends up portraying) a story of a country.
While the story unfolds inside the apartment, the view from the windows lets us enter a Serbia rarely ever seen in the media. I have been filming from the windows for the past 10 years, creating an archive of dramatic and intimate moments taking place on the streets below.
What is the story behind a locked door and an apartment full of history? That an individual is powerless before the forces of politics, or that she is defined by the choices she makes in those situations?
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.
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)
ROMANIA 2015
Comedy 1'29 min
Director: Corneliu Porumboiu
Cast: Toma Cuzin, Adrian Purcarescu
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02G_ANFp8Pg
A hunt for a buried treasure sends two men on a surprising comic caper in this Cannes prize-winning charmer from acclaimed director Corneliu Porumboiu (Police, Adjective; 12:08 East of Bucharest). Costi (Cuzin Toma) is a workaday family man whose cash-strapped next-door neighbour (Adrian Purcarescu) makes him an intriguing proposition: help him find the fortune reportedly buried somewhere on the grounds of his family’s country home and split the profits. But as the two men dig, they unearth more than they bargained for. Part modern day fable, part profound social commentary, The Treasure confirms Porumboiu’s status (previously seen at Euraw Stories in 2016 with East of Bucharest) as “one of our great contemporary observers of the human comedy” (Variety).
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