Films framed by concrete, hearts burning beneath the grey, and a lingering Soviet haze you can’t quite shake. Welcome to Eastern Europe.

Normal

A fairytale enigma, a cinematic poem, a sweet testament to a city and all those who give it life, Aleksandre Koberidze's second feature film is a magical spell that will nestle in every heart that will let it.

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When Lisa and Giorgi meet by chance on a street in Kutaisi, they fall in love at first sight. Before they part ways, they agree to meet the next day. But little do they know that fate has something different in store for them. Will they manage to meet again? And if so, will they know who they are? Life goes on as normal in their town, with stray dogs on the streets, the World Cup kicking off and a film production team in search of true love.

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FIPRESCI Prize | Berlin Film Festival | 2021
Official Selection | San Sebastian Film Festival | 2021

What do we See when we Look at the Sky?

The debut film that took the Locarno Film Festival by storm is a shockingly direct confrontation with the demons of female adolescence, body image and class inequality. The tough and fearless directorial vision and gut-wrenching screenplay make the film inescapably memorable.

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13-year-old Maria lives with her grandmother in a bleak industrial town. During a violent street clash, Maria meets Kristina, a girl her age who aspires to be a model. The two girls enroll in a mysterious modeling school, where they prepare for the biggest casting audition in the area. Her ambivalent relationship with Kristina and the environment of the modeling school (which resembles a cult) push Maria on a journey in search of her identity.

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Best Film | Locarno Film Festival | 2024
Junior Jury Prize | Locarno Film Festival | 2024

Toxic

Exciting new dramas are coming out of Latvia. Set in an era increasingly torn between official party dogma and Western influence, Soviet Jeans unfolds a romantic yet political story about a regime showing the first cracks in its facade.
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Late 1970s. At the height of the USSR’s relentless propaganda against Western culture, a die-hard rock ’n’ roll fan launches a thriving — and illegal — jeans factory inside a Latvian psychiatric hospital.

Soviet Jeans

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

The Georgian director Zaza Urushadze creates a humble, quiet and touching anti-war drama that reminds us of all that unites and divides people, even in an armed conflict. An unexpected, as well as a fair, nomination for the 2015 Foreign Language Oscar.

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During the civil war between the Chechens and the Georgians in 1992, an elderly man will decide to stay behind in order to harvest his crops and tangerines. When, after a battle, he will have to take care of two survivors, one from each side, he will see the true face of division.

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Nominated for Best Foreign Language Film | Oscars | 2015
Nominated for Best Foreign Language Film | Golden Globes | 2015
Best Director | Warsaw International Film Festival | 2013
Audience Award | Warsaw International Film Festival | 2013

Tangerines

The "difficult second film" for Laszlo Nemes after the triumph of his debut, "Son of Saul", is equally masterful. It’s a superbly orchestrated, suffocating descent into existential hell through the entropic streets of Budapest in 1910, just before World War I.

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Budapest, 1913. A young girl arrives in town, hoping to work as a milliner in the legendary hat shop that once belonged to her parents, but the new owner won’t hire her. Meanwhile, preparations are being made in the store to welcome some prominent visitors. A man approaches the girl, looking for someone who has her last name, but she doesn't know him. Refusing to leave town, she starts looking for the stranger who might be the only link to her lost past.

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Official Selection | Venice Film Festival | 2018
FIPRESCI Prize | Venice Film Festival | 2018

Sunset

If you were born again, what would you choose: to be a boss or a slave? A gripping political parable on morality, fear and resistance in one of the highlights in the history of Hungarian cinema.

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During World War II in Hungary, a group of friends are chatting around a table in a pub. Outside, Budapest is being bombed but a snobbish bookseller, a religious carpenter, a pragmatic innkeeper and a cynical friend discuss the consequences of fascism. A man appears and asks them: "Imagine that you are going to die, but you will be reborn as a slave or as a rich master. Which do you choose?" This question will change their lives.

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Official Selection - International Competition | Berlin Film Festival | 1977
Best Film | Moscow Film Festival | 1977

The Fifth Seal

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

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

Kontinental '25

The creator of Flow sharpens his craft in this epic adventure, filmed just a few years before his Oscar-winning triumph. Set in a land filled with danger and mystery, it follows the breathtaking journey of a silent hero through a world unlike any other.

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A young boy finds himself stranded on a mysterious island inhabited by strange creatures and a relentless giant who hunts him. On his epic journey through this eerie, otherworldly land, he must fight to find his way back home.

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Best Film | Annecy Animated Film Festival | 2019

Away

Taken out of Poland's turbulent political scene in the 70's, Kieslowski's first feature-length fiction film reveals the director’s preoccupation with documentaries by capturing a kaleidoscopic reality.

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A man takes over the management of a chemical factory in a deprived area of Poland and is confronted with the partisan and local interests of the actors in the area, but also with the traumas of his own past there.

The Scar

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

The great Andrey Zvyagintsev stages the disappearance of a young boy and gradually and masterfully orchestrates a cinematic requiem about the dissolution of family ties, the absence of love and the deathly apathy of a slowly dying Russia.

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A couple splits up and their divorce is full of disappointment, bitterness and insults. Having already found new partners, the ex-spouses cannot wait to turn the page and start their new lives. Even if that means abandoning their 12-year-old son.

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Nominated for Best Foreign Language Film | Oscars | 2018
Jury Prize | Cannes Film Festival | 2017
Best Foreign Film | César Awards | 2018
Best Film | London Film Festival | 2017

Loveless

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

Postmodern parable with elements of a mystical thriller and an action film, centered on a Soviet executioner who discovers that he has a soul. But is there a heaven for executioners? Narrative that refers to the great classics of Russian literature, and a participation in the Venice Film Festival.

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Captain Fyodor Volkonogov, a respected and docile law enforcement officer of the Soviet Union, witnesses some suspicious interrogations that his colleagues go through. Sensing that his turn is approaching, he escapes and is soon on the run, pursued by his former colleagues. Vulnerable and desperate, he realizes what he has done, but his time is running out and the manhunter's noose closes tightly.

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Official Selection | Venice Film Festival | 2021

Captain Volkonogov Escaped

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

Gripping courtroom thriller set against the background of the true story that led to one of the biggest political scandals of the communist period. Poland's contender for the Oscars stood out at the Venice Film Festival, walking the distance between police violence and the objective truth.

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In 1983, Communist Poland is in turmoil following the death of 18-year-old Grzegorz Przemyk, after he was beaten by the police. The only eyewitness to the event becomes the number one enemy of the state.

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Official Selection | Venice Film Festival | 2021
Official Submission of Poland | Oscars | 2021

Leave No Traces

Framed by amateur actors, the film transports the viewer with shocking forwardness into the harsh reality of its protagonist. A resounding presence in the Un Certain Regard section of Cannes Festival 2021, where it won the Jury Prize.

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Set against the background of a former metallurgical town in North Ossetia, young Ada tries to escape from the tight bonds of her family and the local society that keep her imprisoned.

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Un Certain Regard Best Film Award | Cannes Film Festival | 2021

Unclenching the Fists

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?

Silver Berlin Bear - Jury Grand Prix at the 2017 Berlinale Film Festival for the Polish Malgorzata Szumowska, who once again denounces her country's misdeeds with an ambitious and multi-layered satire.

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A young worker in Poland is seriously injured in the face while trying to build a giant statue of Jesus. He will undergo a face transplant which will lead him to an existential crisis and also reveal the true face of the people around him.

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Grand Jury Prize | Berlin International Film Festival | 2018
Official Selection | Berlin International Film Festival | 2018

Balagov, a filmmaker whose major breakthrough in European cinema is destined to occur this decade and a perpetuator of the Great Russian school, signed his first credentials in 2017 with a small, tight-knit thriller of moral dilemmas, awarded at various festivals around the globe.

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1998, Nalchik, Caucasus foothills, Russia. A 24-year-old woman works in her father's garage. One afternoon, family and friends are gathered to celebrate her younger brother's engagement. The same evening the young couple goes missing, and a note for ransom arrives at the family’s door. In this close-knit community of Jews, police involvement is out of the question. How will the family raise the money to save the victims?

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FIPRESCI Prize - Un Certain Regard | Cannes Film Festival | 2017

Closeness

The ghosts of the past return to haunt and extract revenge, in this skillfully constructed, full-of-twists drama. The film walks a fine line between satire and thriller and continuously torpedoes the concept of "holy matrimony".

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A young couple's wedding day begins auspiciously, but is gradually ruined by a strange visitor. The mysterious young man claims to be an old friend from the groom's school. He is warmly welcomed, yet everything changes when he confesses his true identity to the bride. The secrets that will be revealed will force the newlyweds to view their relationship in a new light, that's neither innocent nor magical.

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Best Director | Karlovy Vary International Film Festival | 2013

Honeymoon

In his first collaboration with screenwriter Piesiewicz and composer Zbigniew Preisner, Kieslowski unfolds for the first time the themes that were destined to define his later work: loss, death and the endless search for meaning in the limitless improbabilities of life.

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A dead lawyer watches from the afterlife the lives of his wife and son, but also the course of a political prisoner's case, which has been taken over by a more pragmatic colleague.

No End

Oscar for best documentary, at a historic moment for Ukraine and the world that is still watching. One of the few times when a film captures the present so clearly, turning the camera on the victims to create a gripping cinematic account.

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An AP team of Ukrainian journalists trapped in the besieged city of Mariupol struggle to continue their work documenting atrocities of the Russian invasion. As the only international reporters who remain in the city, they capture what later become defining images of the war: dying children, mass graves, the bombing of a maternity hospital, and more.

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Best Documentary | Oscars | 2024
Best Documentary | BAFTA | 2024
Audience Award | Sundance Film Festival | 2023
Documentary Special Mention | Athens Film Festival | 2023

20 Days in Mariupol

Music, love and resistance. Kirill Serebrennikov, the director who became a target for the Putin administration, delivers a riveting, torrential love story taking place in the Soviet Union’s underground rock scene in the ‘80s. Official Selection at the Cannes Film Festival.

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The members of a Russian underground rock band in the 80’s experiment with a love triangle and with the limits of censorship in Soviet Russia. Trapped between their passion for music, seeking romantic desire and a change in the political scenery, they struggle to move beyond their humble concerts and become famous.

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International Competition | Cannes Film Festival 2018
Cannes Soundtrack Award | Cannes Film Festival 2018
International Competition | San Sebastián International Film Festival 2018