Stories from our neighborhood that - let’s admit it - feel all too familiar. Because... this is the Balkans baby!

Normal

Originally drawing from the cinema of Yannis Economides, Fokion Bogris soon develops his story by following his own unique path, and provides us with one of the finest samples of fresh Greek cinema, with noir references and remarkable realism in the depiction of his world.

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Vaggelis, a remnant of the rave generation, gets by selling weed. He would like a steady job with no risks. Petros, a thug from the southern suburbs. He wants respect and a family. Katerina, unwittingly, brings them under the same roof.

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Best Supporting Actor Award (Stathis Stamoulakatos) | Hellenic Film Academy | 2021

Amercement

A film that started several years ago as a documentary and turned into a personal foray into adolescence and into the teenager’s life iand what it means to grow up in a world where imagination is the only way out, from a talented young Romanian filmmaker.

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Bucharest, 1972. Ana, 17, dreams of love and freedom. One night, while partying with her friends, they decide to send a letter to Metronom, the musical program that Radio Free Europe broadcasts clandestinely in Romania. It is then that the Securitate, Ceausescu’s secret police, arrives.

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Directing Prize - Un Certain Regard | Cannes Film Festival | 2022

Metronom

With surgical precision and caustic humor, Danis Tanović lays bare the absurdity of war and exposes the hypocrisy of international politics in one of the most important films about the Yugoslav civil war, winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

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During the Bosnian War, two soldiers from opposing sides find themselves trapped in a trench in the middle of the combat zone. Alongside them lies a third soldier, wounded and immobilized atop a landmine. When the media and peacekeeping forces become entangled in the negotiations, time begins to run out for everyone.

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Best Foreign Language Film | Oscars | 2002
Best Foreign Language Film | Golden Globes | 2002
Best Screenplay | Cannes Film Festival | 2001
European Screenwriter | European Film Awards | 2001
Audience Award | San Sebastian Film Festival | 2001

No Man's Land

Oscar-nominated Jasmila Žbanić (Quo Vadis, Aida?) returns with her in-depth exploration of family relationships tested in the shadow of political conflict. A breathtaking story that transcends borders, exposing the wounds and dilemmas born of social inequality.
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Prosecutor Nevena Murtazić, who leads an understaffed prosecutorial unit, investigates the apparent suicide of a teenage boy from the same school as her son Dino. As she digs deeper, troubling signs of bullying among classmates emerge. When the victim’s father accuses Dino of being one of the abusers, Nevena’s pursuit of the truth becomes a harrowing battle between her duty as a prosecutor and her fear of what her son might be capable of.

I Know Your Soul

One of the darkest chapters in modern European history takes the form of a suffocating political thriller full of dilemmas, suspense and – literal – dead ends. Jasmila Zbanic weaves personal tragedies into the canvas of history in an Oscar-nominated masterpiece.

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Based on true events, the film takes place in the summer of 1995 in Bosnia, during the siege of Srebrenica by the Serbian army. Aida works as an interpreter for the United Nations peacekeeping forces in the area. As the siege of the city tightens, Aida must make life and death decisions for herself and her family.

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Nomination for Best International Feature | Oscars | 2021
Audience Award | Rotterdam Film Festival | 2021

Quo Vadis, Aida?

Not very far from our part of the world, there are societies with deeply rooted conservative mindsets that only brave souls can change. An astounding true story of female empowerment from Kosovo, that triumphed at this year’s Sundance Festival, taking home three awards.

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Fahrije’s husband has been missing since the war broke out in Kosovo and his family has to deal with the financial burden along with their grief. In order to help, Fahrije starts a small farming business, but in the traditional patriarchal society where she lives, her ambitions and efforts for empowerment are treated negatively. She fights, not only for her family’s survival, but for her own as well, against a hostile community that’s rooting for her to fail.

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Audience Award | Sundance Film Festival | 2021
Grand Jury Pize | Sundance Film Festival | 2021
Directing Award | Sundance Film Festival | 2021
Audience Award | Thessaloniki Film Festival | 2021

Hive

What's right and what's wrong? Who can really impart morality to others? A young teacher gives us an exciting and suspenseful lesson in ethics, unlike anything else we've been taught.

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In a small Bulgarian town, a young educator is looking for the class thief in order to teach him a lesson about right and wrong. When she finds herself hugely indebted, will she be able to practice what she preaches?

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Best New Director | San Sebastián Film Festival | 2014 
Bronze Alexander | Thessaloniki Film Festival | 2014
Best Screenplay | Thessaloniki Film Festival | 2014

The Lesson

The greatest chronicler of our time, sharper than ever. After "Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn" Radu Jude composes an uncategorized urban road movie satire of the age of the gig economy and social media, in a riveting film collage between absurdity and pure shock.

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A story about cinema, social media and the economy, in two parts: Depressed and underpaid, Angela drives all over Bucharest to film casting for a corporate "workplace safety video" commissioned by a multinational company. When one of the interviewees reveals the company's responsibility for his accident, a scandal erupts - in front of a still, unmoving camera.

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Special Jury Prize | Locarno Film Festival | 2023

Do not Expect too Much from the End of the World

Bulgarian filmmaker Stephan Komandarev methodically and masterfully constructs a quiet yet relentless and revealing drama about loneliness and moral decay in a society that has forgotten what it means to be human.

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An elderly schoolteacher in Bulgaria tries to live with dignity and moral discipline, until a phone scam leaves her without savings and without hope. In her struggle to recover the lost money—and, more importantly, to regain control over her life—she slowly slips into a world she once taught her students to stay away from.

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Βest Film | Karlovy Vary International Film Festival | 2023
Best Actress (Eli Skorcheva) | Karlovy Vary International Film Festival | 2023

Blaga's Lessons

Milcho Manchevski, director of the Golden Lion-winning and Oscar-nominated Before the Rain, explores the eternal nature of love through an irreverent, unconventional and poignant love story set in North Macedonia, while daring to touch on darker social issues.

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A young, wealthy couple feel on top of the world when a distant relative comes to live with them. Meanwhile, their middle-aged neighbors feel left behind in life when the husband begins an illicit affair.

Kaymak

A landmark for the Romanian New Wave and one of the creations that drew the attention of the global film community to the Balkan country, Kristi Puiu's film is a hauntingly stark exploration of loneliness and mortality in a cynically indifferent bureaucratic system.

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Retired Dante Lazarescu, who lives alone in Bucharest, feels unwell and a neighbouring couple help him until the ambulance arrives. The accompanying nurses carry him from hospital to hospital where he is barely able to undergo the necessary tests before finally falling into a coma.

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Un Certain Regard Award | Cannes Film Festival | 2005
Nomination for Best Director | European Film Awards | 2005
Nomination for Best Screenplay | European Film Awards | 2005

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu

You are not ready for this shake up. Difficult subjects, taboos, strong emotions and a daring family drama from Romania that haunts, a "discovery" of the Berlin Festival's small sections.

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Two siblings and an illegitimate love. A father and several accusations. A family in which no one ever drew a line between what's moral and what's legal. Not even when it comes to abortion.

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C.I.C.A.E. Award | Berlin International Film Festival | 2016
Best Film Award | Odessa International Film Festival | 2016
Best Film Award | Pula Film Festival | 2016

Illegitimate

Romanian New Wave patriarch, Cristi Puiu, composes with surgical precision and sharpness another grand and demanding epic of small things, a mosaic of his country's society within the four walls of an apartment.

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Three days after the terrorist attack at the Charlie Hebdo magazine offices and 40 days after his father's death, a man plans to spend his Saturday with his relatives in order to honor his deceased father. At the same time, he finds himself facing his fears and his past, and wondering what his place is within his family.

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Official Selection | Cannes Film Festival | 2016
Best Film | Chicago International Film Festival | 2016
Best Cinematography | Minsk International Film Festival | 2016

Sieranevada

2019's documentary, a surprisingly photographed ode to Mother Nature and a way of life that's centuries old and gradually disappearing. It stood out among the other entries in its genre, being the only documentary to be nominated for an Oscar for Best International Film in history.

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In a secluded mountainous region deep within the Balkans, Hatidze Muratova lives with her elderly mother, in a village without roads, electricity or running water. Last in a series of generations of beekeepers of wild honey, Hatidze produces small batches of pure product, which she sells to the nearest town, a four-hour walk away.

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Nominated for Best Documentary | Oscars | 2020
Nominated for Best International Feature Film | Oscars | 2020
Best Documentary | Athens International Film Festival | 2019
Grand Jury Prize | Sundance Film Festival | 2019
Cinematography Award | Sundance Film Festival | 2019

Honeyland

Absolutely current, absolutely modern and absolutely meta, this biting social satire by Romanian Radu Jude, which triumphed in Berlin and took home the Golden Bear, is the first great cinematic depiction of the Covid-19 era.

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A couple films its own amateur porn tape, but when that leaks to the internet, its star tries to secure her position at the school where she works, while the fabric of society is being disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Golden Bear | Berlin Film Festival | 2020
Official Selection | San Sebastián International Film Festival

Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn

Sublime mixture of modern investigative documentary and proper political thriller, with tension and suspense that grip spectators as they watch incredible revelations about state corruption in Romania come to life. Nominated for 2 Oscars and winner of multiple festival awards worldwide.

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In 2015, a fire at Bucharest’s Colectiv club leaves 27 dead and 180 injured. Soon, more burn victims begin dying in hospitals from wounds that were not life-threatening. A team of investigative journalists take action to uncover vast corruption that has overrun the healthcare system and other state sectors. Collective follows the journalists, public interest witnesses and government officials, and is a poignant and clear look on the price of corruption and the cost of truth.

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Nominated for Best Foreign Language Film | Oscars | 2021
Nominated for Best Documentary | Oscars | 2021
Best European Documentary | European Film Awards
LUX Audience Award | European Audience Awards | 2021

Collective

The Balkans, who hear stories from the West about gender equality and laugh, are pouncing militantly on the blasphemous Petrunya, who is deemed a scandalous heretic by local tradition. Excellent satire with more than 30 awards internationally and the LUX Prize of the European Parliament.

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In a small town, the consecration of water is one of the most important moments for the community and, against tradition, an unemployed single woman dives into the water and takes up the cross. Furious at being left empty-handed, the men accuse her of disrespect.

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Prize of the Ecumenical Jury | Berlin Film Festival | 2019
European Audience Award | LUX Prize | 2019

God Exists, Her Name Is Petrunya

Best Film Award in the Orizzonti section of the Venice Film Festival for a tragicomedy set on a single day before the 1989 revolution in Romania. Acute humour and poignant political commentary come together in a pivotal film that reminds us of the importance of historical memory.

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On 20 December 1989, Romania is on the verge of revolution. Six seemingly unconnected lives intersect in unexpected ways. As tensions reach a breaking point, an explosive moment unites them, culminating in the dramatic fall of Ceausescu and the communist regime.

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Best Film Award - Orizzonti | Venice Film Festival | 2024
FIPRESCI Prize | Venice Film Festival | 2024

The New Year that Never Came

Golden Camera for Best Emerging Director at the Cannes Film Festival for an intoxicating and sun-drenched study of the passage to adulthood that plunges into the deep blue waters of the Adriatic and the abyss of desire.

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Tensions escalate between troubled teenager Julia and her repressive father Ante when an old family friend visits them at their home on an island in Croatia.

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Golden Camera - Best Debut Feature | Cannes Film Festival | 2021

Murina

Fatih Akin is in the mood for epic adventure and history, courageously focusing on the Armenian genocide. This imposing and affecting quest of one man gives us a chance to contemplate: how far would we go to be reunited with our loved ones?

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Mardin, 1915. A young blacksmith is violently separated from his family. Years later, having survived the genocide, he discovers that his daughters are still alive, and his life's mission becomes to find them again. He travels from the deserts of Mesopotamia to Havana and the pastures of North Dakota. During his journey, he will experience people’s capacity for kindness, but also disdain and brutality.

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Official Selection | Venice Film Festival | 2014
Vittorio Veneto Film Festival Award | Special Mention | Venice Film Festival | 2014
Audience Award | Sofia International Film Festival | 2015

The Cut

In this gritty social drama from Romania, which won the Sarajevo Festival award, Emmanuel Parvu looks his country's countryside in the eye and creates a martyr's portrait of a young man who becomes the reason for the most conservative instincts of an entire local society to erupt.

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Andi spends the summer in his village in the Danube Delta. One night he falls victim to a violent attack in the street, and the next day everything around him seems to be turned upside down. His parents no longer look at him as they used to, and the seeming peace of the village begins to be disturbed.

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Queer Palm | Cannes Film Festival | 2024
Best Film | Sarajevo Film Festival | 2024

Three Kilometres to the End of the World

Are the notions of right and wrong, legal and illegal, actually applicable in the Balkan arena? Our protagonist is hailed as a working-class hero, only to get himself in trouble due to pervasive state corruption, gradually and aggressively revealed, turning him into a victim.

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An inspector finds millions of leva on the railroad tracks during a search. He hands over the money to the police, and thus, the state organizes an event to honor him. The head of the department of Public Relations of the Ministry of Transportation takes the inspector's old watch, a family heirloom, in order to give him a new one: a gift for his morals. Along the way, the new watch breaks and the old one gets lost. A desperate battle to restore the treasured heirloom and his dignity begins.

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Special Mention | Locarno Film Festival | 2016
Best Film | Kolkata International Film Festival | 2016
Audience Award | Minsk International Film Festival | 2016
Best Film | Sofia International Film Festival | 2017

Glory

True to his mission of portraying late capitalist Europe, Radu Jude proves once again that he is the ultimate contender for the title of the most unpredictable contemporary filmmaker and wins the 75th Berlinale's award for Best Screenplay.

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Cluj, Transylvania. After being driven from his shelter in a house cellar, a homeless man commits suicide. Orsolya, the bailiff who carried out the eviction, is impelled to make various attempts to address her feelings of guilt.

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Best Screenplay | Berlin Film Festival | 2025