Parallels and Encounters
Selector: Dubravka Lakic

1. SUBURBS / Predmestje, Slovenia 2004, 90'
Directed by: Vinko Mordendorfer
Cast: Renato Jenček, Peter Musevski, Jernej Šugman, Silvo Božić, Maja Lešnik, Primož Petrovšek
Festivals: Montreal 2004

Marjan and his group of friends are disturbed by a young couple of foreign nationality moving to their suburbs. Through a secret filming of the young lovers the tragic fates of these friends, who keep blaming others for their own misfortune, are revealed. Suburbs is a film of developing xenophobia and nationalism. It is a story about the suburbs in the human soul.

2. WAITING FOR THE CLOUDS / Bulutlari Beklerken, France-Germany-Greece-Turkey 2004, 90'
Directed by: Jesim Ustaoglu
Cast: Rušan Ćaliskur, Ridvan Zagci, Dimitris Caberidis, Ismail Baysan
Festivals: Pusan 2004, Mar Del Plata 2004, Thessaloniki 2004, Karlove Vary 2005

Ayshe, a woman of approximately 60 years, lives in a village of Anatolia within a family where it makes a little function of grandmother for Mehmet, a 10 year old boy. But as from the day when his/her elder sister dies, Ayshe starts to be folded up more and more on itself. The arrival at the village of an unknown, Tanasis, makes him become aware that it is impossible for him to keep secrèt longer the true identity which is his: girl of orthodoxe Greeks pontic who lived in Turkey, Ayshe lived 50 years earlier the long walk of deportation during which his/her parents lost the life. She then was separated from her brother then adopted with her sister by a Turkish family. One half-century later, Ayshe leaves for Greece on the traces his/her brother.

3. BAL-CAN-CAN, Macedonia-Italy 2004, 89'
Directed by: Darko Mitrevski
Cast: Branko Đurić, Vlado Jovanovski, Nikola Kojo, Antonela Troase
Festivals: Moscow 2005

Blood-brothers Serafim and Vitomir are the protagonists of this story. Longtime friends, the two share risks and very little profit, which they obtain by smuggling goods from Italy into Socialist Jugoslavia. Their growing fame raises the curiosity of criminal Sefket Ramadani, a bloodthirsty individual whose name sends shivers down many-a-spine. He summons Serafim and Vitomir and asks them to take part to a bank robbery, granting them eternal richness. Only too late they realize that the operation is in fact a set-up: Serafim gets caught by the police, while Vitomir makes a cowardly escape; diving into the Adriatic Sea, and swims his way to the coasts of Italy, where he proclaims himself a political refugee and adopts the fictitious name of Vito Genovese. In years, former Vitomir makes a healthy and solid criminal career. A happy life, one might say, if it is wasn't for the recurrent memory of his blood-brother Serafim perishing in a Jugoslavian prison. Half a century goes by. A civil war has fragmented Communist Jugoslavia into a group of smaller republics and Vito Genovese is breathing his last wish into the ear of Santino, his one and only son.

4. CHAMPIONS / Mistři, Czech Republic 2004, 83'
Directed by: Marek Najbrt
Cast: Klara Meliskova, Vil Spor, Jirži Ornest, Jan Budar
Festivals: Karlove Vary 2004, Athens 2004
Awards: Athens - FIPRESCI AWARD
Czech Lions - Critics award (Marek Najbrt)
Best editing (Pavel Hrdicka)
Best episode actor (Jan Budar)
Best episode actress (Klara Meliskova)

Somewhere near the border, deep in the Czech countryside. A rundown bar is the meeting-place for a few guys, who have seen better days themselves. They meet to watch the World Ice Hockey Championship – Czechoslovakia’s national sport – on an old black-and-white television-set. Karel, the owner of the long-bankrupt bar, still believes in his business and the love of his wife Zdena – but she already has her eye on the elegant and vain bus-driver Milan. Neurotic Pavel from Prague can, when drunk, tell the winner of the next match. Josef is a descendant of the Gypsies – at least, that’s what the others, who make jokes about him, believe. These men put all their hope in the Czech team – and anybody who applauds a good move by the Canadians is not a real Czech, at least in their eyes.
CHAMPIONS is a black comedy about illusions that have been destroyed long ago.

5. DEALER / Diler, Hungary 2004, 135'
Directed by: Benedek Fligeauf
Cast: Felisijan Kerestes, Barbara Turzso, Lajos Sakacs, Aniko Zigeti, Edina Balog
Festivals: Athens 2004, Berlin 2004, Lece 2004, Mar Del Plata 2004, Wiesbaden 2004
Awards: Athens - Golden Athens (Benedek Fligeauf)
Berlin- Die Berliner Zeitung award
Mar Del Plata- Best film
Best directing (Benedek Fligeauf)
FIPRESCI award
Special award
Wiesbaden- Best director (Benedek Fligeauf)

A day in life of drug dealer and his customers.

6. SHIZO, Kazakhstan-Russia-France-Germany 2004, 86'
Directed by: Gulyshat Omarova
Cast: Oldhaz Nusupbayev, Olga Landina, Eduard Tabishev
Festivals: Cannes 2004 (Certain View), Cottbus 2004, Copenhagen 2004, Tokyo 2004
Awards: Copenhagen- Best female director (Gulyshat Omarova)
Cottbus Grand Award
Tokyo - Best Actor- Oldhaz Nusupbayev

This beautiful and moving feature, set in modern-day Kazakhstan, depicts the hard choices a young man makes when he’s caught between poverty, crime and love, guided only by his wits and his better nature.

7. THE HARVEST TIME / Vremja Žatvy, Russia 2004, 67'
Directed by: Marina Razbezhkina
Cast: Vjacheslav Batrakov, Dima Ermakov, Ljudmila Motornaja, Dmitrij Dima Jakovljev
Festivals: Karlove Vary 2004, Moscow 2004, Thessaloniki 2004, Trieste 2005-06-22
Awards: Moscow - FIPRESCI award
Thessaloniki – Silver Alexander
Special award
Trieste -Alpe Adria Film Festival- Best Film

Set on a collective farm in the early 50s, Marina Razhbezhkina's debut feature is conceived as a reminiscence by the protagonist's dead son. His mother, Antonina Gusova (Ludmila Motornaja), raises her two sons and confronts the problems of a husband who has lost both legs and is unable to work. The only woman driver of a combine harvester in the region, she becomes the acknowledged champion and is awarded a Red Banner in recognition. She regularly patches the banner, which is being eaten by mice, and continues to win the award. This is a clever and multi-layered film in which the realities of the Communist Dream still exert some force. Despite deprivation, life has vitality, and the child's view of the home, with its goats and geese, has a reality lost in the uncaring present. The images of the female driver, juxtaposed with an endless landscape, are impressive, constructing an ambiguous interplay with the stereotypes of Socialist Realist art. Above all, perhaps, this strongly poetic film creates a sense of the value of the lives of those living in apparent obscurity.

8. THE DEATH OF MR. LAZARESCU / Moartea Domnului Lazarescu, Romania 2005, 153'
Directed by: Cristi Puiu
Cast: Ion Fiscuteanu, Luminita Gheorghiu, Mimi Branescu, Dana Dogaru
Festivals:Cannes (Certain View)
Awards: Cannes- Certain View award
GAN Foundation award

Mr.Lazarescu is 63 years old and lives in a block of flats, together with his three cats. His wife died eight years ago and his daughter has moved to Canada.
It is a saturday evening, Mr lazarescu doesn't feel too well, so he calls for the ambulance. Until the paramedics arrive, he tires to ease the pain with something from his own supply of medecins. Because he is short of the pills he needs, he asks for his neighbours' help. Sandu and Miki, the neighbours interrupted from their domestic activity, give him the first aid, although they can smell he's been drinking.
Then the ambulance arrives...

9. STOLEN EYES / Otkradnati Oči, Bulgaria 2004, 110'
Directed by: Radoslav Spasov
Cast: Vesela Kazakova, Valeri Jordanov, Nejat Isler, Djoko Rosic
Festivals: Sophia 2005, Moscow 2005

Story about strange, impossible love between Turkish girl Eiten and Bulgarian Ivan.