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FESTIVALS The Netherlands

Eastern Neighbours Film Festival focuses on non-EU movies

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- This year’s ENFF is bringing 41 cinematic gems from the wider Eastern European region to Dutch audiences

Eastern Neighbours Film Festival focuses on non-EU movies
No One's Child by Vuk Rsumovic

The festival for Eastern European cinema in the Netherlands, Eastern Neigbours (ENFF), is preparing for its seventh edition. The event will again take place in The Hague, and films will be screened at three key locations: Filmhuis Den Haag (4-8 November), Humanity House (11 November) and Het Nutshuis (12-14 November).

This year, the ENFF is bringing 41 cinematic gems from the wider Eastern European region to Dutch audiences. Serbian drama No One’s Child [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Vuk Rsumovic, based on a true story about a boy raised by wolves in the Bosnian woods, has been chosen to kick off the festival. It is part of the extensive Current Engaging Cinema programme, which focuses on films from non-EU member countries, and also includes: Corn Island [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: George Ovashvili
film profile
]
(Crystal Globe winner at Karlovy Vary in 2014) by George Ovashvili, a Georgian psychological drama about the relationship between man and nature; the Serbian anti-war opus Enclave [+see also:
film review
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film profile
]
(the 2015 Oscar entry) by Goran Radovanovic; Honey Night [+see also:
trailer
film profile
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by Ivo Trajkov, a Macedonian chamber drama combining a marital crisis and a political scandal; and Our Everyday Life [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ines Tanović
film profile
]
, the Bosnian feature debut by acclaimed documentary filmmaker Ines Tanovic, which depicts the struggles of a post-war society. Another rich programme is the documentary section, which features the most recent films by Jasmila Žbanic and Želimir Žilnik, respectively One Day in Sarajevo [+see also:
film review
interview: Jasmila Žbanić
film profile
]
, which focuses on the assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Franz Ferdinand, in 1914, and Logbook_Serbistan, which tackles the migrant crisis in Serbia. Among the six shorts in the ENFF Discoveries section, two films warrant special attention: the Croatian black comedy Story About Mare by Igor Seregi and the Georgian title Reflection by Giorgi Mrevlishvili, which interprets cinema as the connecting medium between the past and the present.

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Each edition of the festival also presents a programme dedicated to an important historical event. After last year’s focus on the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, this year the festival highlights the Dayton Peace Agreement, which was signed 20 years ago. The occasion will be celebrated through a debate and four titles that deal with the post-war craving for internal peace and identity, including Silver Leopard winner Fuse [+see also:
trailer
film profile
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by Pjer Žalica (2003).

Cinema of I and Other on Us are two brand-new sections that gather personal artistic testimonies. The former includes The Fuse: Or How I Burned Simon Bolivar by Igor Drljaca, which uses private home-video footage. The latter section provides an overview of an outsider’s perspective of Eastern Europe and includes the Dutch-Belgian-Serbian-Greek social drama The Sky Above Us [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
by Marinus Groothof, which unfolds during NATO’s three-month bombing campaign against Serbia in 1999, and the Spanish documentary Good Night Sarajevo by Olivier Algora and Edu Marín, about a famous Bosnian radio journalist who gave people some comfort through his words during the war.

The ENFF will close with the stylish love triangle Rondo by Zvonimir Berkovic from 1966, which Croatian film critics consider the best Croatian movie of all time. The title will be presented by actress Milena Dravic, a beloved film star from the former Yugoslavia.

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