26/10/2011

The fourth edition of the Eastern Neighbours film festival (Utrecht – October 26-30) shows films from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey for Dutch audience.

This year's programme includes more than 30 films from the Balkan region to be screened in the Louis Hartlooper Complex in the Dutch city of Utrecht between October 26-30. The festival is dedicated to eastern and south-eastern European cinema in order to “bring cultures together, aiming to create more knowledge and tolerance”, says Festival Director Rada Šešić.

There is a special focus on Turkish cinema, which has been blossoming recently. Apart from Reha Erdem’s retrospective (pictured), audiences will enjoy the omnibus urban tale Do Not Forget Me Istanbul made by six directors, and the documentary Ecumenopolis: City Without Limits by Imre Azem predicting demographic disaster for Istanbul in the future. Another highlight is the Albanian Amnistia (Amnesty) [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Bujar Alimani
film profile] by BujarAlimani shown within the Berlinale 2011 Official Selection; the recent film by acclaimed Croatian director Dalibor Matanic, Mother of Asphalt [+see also:
trailer
film profile], with Marija Skarićić, who holds the accolade Shooting Star of Europe 2011 and the Bosnian film Belvedere by Ahmed Imamović who won the prize for Best European Short Film in 2002.

Two classics will be screened – the hilarious Serbian comedy from 1980 Who’s That Singing Over There by Slobodan Šijan and the 1978 Turkish melodrama hit The Girl with the Red Scarf by Atif Yilmaz.

The side programme offers viewers an opportunity to see and participate the Serbian interactive experiment Über Life by Lazar Bodroža, as well as to take part in a documentary workshop on chosen topic with a global connotation. The call is open for filmmakers from Netherlands with the 'Is Justice Fair?' project and the workshop will take place in The Hague between 2–9 November.