Oct 7, 2013

Featured Event | Balkans Beyond Borders Film Festival 2013

If you're a film buff and/or interested in Eastern European culture, don't miss: 
The 4th Balkans Beyond Borders Short Film Festival “Reinventing Bridges” 
celebrating Balkan diversity through cinematography.

Supported by the European Fund for the Balkans,  
the festival will be held in Bucharest, Romania 
on 11-13 October 2013
at National Museum Țăranului Român & Club Țăranului

The Films

The Dream, Video art- Experimental 4,34’ Albania
Eros Dibra

My Baby, Drama- Mystery 19’ Romania
Luiza Parvu
Security guard Iulia, interior decorator Andi and English language teacher Ana are bound by a series of decisions that could change their lives forever. Each of them depends on the others’ actions. Each one of them gets to care for and needs to be taken care of. Transparent windows are not necessarily see-through.

Michael Pollan’s Food Rules, Animation 2,13’ Serbia
Marija Jasimovic
A short stop-motion film that playfully animates seeds, veggies, cookies and popcorn to the words of award-winning author, journalist and food activist Michael Pollan. Illustrating the importance of healthy eating and the health of our planet, it acts like an appetizer to anyone willing to become more mindful of the food they eat.

Sphinx, Drama 18,25’ Greece
Konstantinos Karamagkiolis
“Greece 2012” The right wing extremist party’s popularity has risen dramatically and the party violently threatens the natives to banish the foreigners. In a ghetto neighborhood of Athens the SPHINX team undertakes the duties of an unsolicited militia, whose goal is to cleanse the area from every non-Greek element, with main hero a 17-year-old student, member and son of the leader of the fascist organization.

My Circumcision, Fiction 17’ Germany/Turkey
Uludag Ümit
Nine-year-old Ümit does not want to go to Turkey with his family. He is haunted by the thought of his upcoming circumcision and he misses his friends in Germany. Everyone in Turkey is stupid, especially his cousin Haluk. Ümit feels like a fish out of water. Tradition stresses him to step up and face his fears, but not without his Mesut Özil football shirt.

Sisters, Experimental 7,48’ Belgium/Croatia
Lea Vidakovic
The sisters are trapped in facing the loss and emptiness over the missing one.

Botev is an idiot, Fiction 8,51’ Bulgaria
Deyan Bararev
A high school student Vasko criticizes his society that swears by Bulgarian national hero Hristo Botev and his ideals but at the same time is living in a brutish narrow-mindedness

The Blue identity, Fiction/Documentary 19’ Germany
Mumin Baris

Two Kurdish men with blue (refugee) passport living in Berlin try to deal with the idea of not being able to go back to their homeland forever.

De Nuevo, Fiction 7’ Greece
Christos Karteris

The most inanimate object in your house, takes over your mind…

Identity, Drama 25’ Serbia
Milos Krasulja

A story about two outsiders brought together unexpectedly by bureaucracy.

Do they know me? Drama 1,4’ Turkey
Abdullah Harun Ilhan

Inside Questions of an Anatolian man who emigrated to Europe for work…

I want to know what it’s like, Documentary 5’ Romania
Alexandra Carastonian

Diversity is everywhere. In some countries it is less accepted, in others maybe more. This is a short movie about what some members of the Romanian LGBTQ community feel in their daily lives. A movie about how people perceive love and acceptance. A movie about freedom of love and expression. “Through the screening at the BBB Festival, we wish to celebrate the memory of Cristi, a strong activist for the Romanian LGBTQ community who died in January 2013.”

The Blue Viking in Sarajevo, Documentary 17’ Bosnia and Herzegovina
Ado Hasnaovic

A film that portrays a Latin American whose background includes three nationalities – Argentinean, Chilean, and Uruguayan. Emilio started performing street dance in Chile at the age of 19. He had visited 65 states, and then he found himself on the streets of Sarajevo. The capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina has become his home, and new friends have become his family.

Waves in agony, Experimental 8,35’ Greece
Nasos Karabelas

A film about human existence; about the things that we can’t understand. We live in an absurd world where we want to find our safety. We are trying for this but the only thing that we find is the limitless freedom.

The Ballad of Biszewski & I, Fiction 30’ Greece
Quail Harlow

Biszewski picks ‘I’ up beaten. He’s on the hunt for the lifestyle he’s been sold by his heroes…

Sunshine through the rain, Fiction 10’ Bulgaria- Hungary
Hristo Simeonov

Stas and David became friends this summer and are inseparable. David has gypsy origins and the grandmother of Stas doesn’t approve this friendship David’s grandmother is concerned about the boys’ friendship for very different reasons… Now the bears get married, become foolish and don’t hide from people.

The Verdict, Documentary 11’ Croatia
Djuro Gavran

Sixteen years after the war, in the main square of Zagreb several thousand people gathered to watch a live broadcast of the verdict to Croatian generals. Through a series of close-ups, the film documents the eruption of emotions caused by the verdict.

Doors, Doors, Doors, Fiction 23’ Albania
Kreshnik Saraci

A film that talks about the life of six different people that casually are gathered in the same place. They live in the same building, in the same floor.

Worthless, Drama 11,43’ Kosovo
Nart Zeqiraj

Three friends hanging around in a cafe, make plans on where to go. Empty coffee cups on the table show that there is some time they are there. Affected by the monotony they begin to tease each-other and passersby.

The hungry men, Distopia 28’ Greece
Yorgos Bakalis

Capitalism has collapsed, and fat people have been driven out of society… a few of them, living in the same house, form a revolutionary group without meaning. An anonymous, fat man lives above them. Everything changes when the leader of the group decides to eat the state officer for the cause of the revolution. Only one person in the house, who is asked to write the manifesto, knows about the leader’s plan.

First Lady of Dubrava, Comedy/Drama 20’ Croatia
Barbara Vekaric

Amra is an attractive and talented teenager living in the outskirts of. Dina is her chubby, clumsy and spoiled younger sister who suffers from asthma. Amra and her “manager” plan to shoot a hot music video but she learns last minute that she’s to babysit Dina instead…

Nicoleta, Fiction 19’ Greece
Sonia Liza Kenterman


About a city, Experimental 8,34’ Serbia
Dragana Nikolic

Talking with the ghosts of the city, the shadows, the fog…
This city is full of secrets. Secret passageways, stairways. Just hidden from you, hard to find…

The sound at the window, Fiction 19,09’ Turkey
Nursel Dogan

Gülizar had to move from her small village to the big city. She can’t speak any language except her native language is Kurdish. Everything is very different for her in the big metropolis city Istanbul. She has to face a lot of challenges of everyday lie.

One line, Experimental 3,4’ Greece
Dimitris Argiriou

“One Line” is the line, which connects the dream with the reality.

Vacant, Fiction 14’ Sweden
Josephine Camitz

In a city that was once theirs. Myrto and Spiros are two young lovers living in Athens. She suffers from a disease. He becomes shut out.

Cat, Experimental/ Documentary 30’ Germany
Stefan Neuberger

KEDİ is an experimental documentary in the tradition of “Cadavre Exquis”. Several people from Istanbul are portrayed through the power of their imagination in a moving portrait photography. Together they create and narrate a fiction story about the life of a cat.

One year after, Drama 10,48’ Romania
Cristian Pascariu
How does a mother deal with the loss of her husband? “One year after” is the story of a mother who unwillingly meets the man who killed her husband at a heart-breaking accident. In an attempt to express his remorse and deep feelings of guilt, the man tries to talk to the woman whose life has been marked by him.

The man who fed his shadow, Drama 18’ Greece
Mario Garefo

A man intrudes into rich people’s dinners claiming that he can collect the food from their table and feed his shadow which, curiously enough, is a female figure.

Transformance, Experimental 8,15’ Germany/ Croatia
Nina Kurtela

Transformance is a video-event-work that activates and documents a five-month durational performance. Over this period of time, Nina Kurtela establishes a daily practice of visiting and witnessing the changes at the building site of the Uferstudios, Wedding, Berlin – the warehouse for the repair of public trams and buses becomes a dance institution. The camera acts as a witness to her performing/witnessing.

One missed call, Fiction 5,43’ Greece
Fotis Velentzas

One night in town a boy and a girl capture their meeting on video, building up a choreography of thoughts and memories before they separate…

Boy Story, Romantic comedy 17’ Greece
Thanassis Angelopoulos

A bus station, a video-club, a swimming-pool. A series of random meetings will become the occasion for a “Boy Story” to unroll. Will the hero manage to overcome the suspensions which victimize him since childhood? And will he manage to make Eirini ask him what is the music he is listening to?

Between the lines, Drama 9,3’ Germany/ France
Fingscheidt Nora

Hungary 1946. The Hungarian policeman Sándor must displace his foster father Michael from his farm. Michael’s refusal to leave his country leads to a tragic end.

Dreaming Apecar, Comedy 16’ Italy
Dario Leone

Caterina is a 45 year old Italian woman who has been without a job for months and cannot find another one. So she accepts to work as a carer for Gheorghe, an elderly lively Romanian stuck to a wheelchair. This experience will change her life.

Man in a box, Clay Animation 4,36’
Elias Papastamatiou

A figure pops up out of a piece of clay, but is unable to get released. It desperately seeks to find ways to get cut off from this piece of clay which confines it. Freedom is close…

The Shovel is too small, Documentary 24’ Serbia
Nemanja Babic

The film investigates the motivation for work through the shock workers movement and the youth work campaigns. The elderly folk are skeptical regarding the new generations, accusing them of being only after the material benefits. Today, these work campaigns have lost their role of connecting people, so it’s absurd that they seem to be outdated but also inspiring.

In the shadow of the deathless tree, Fiction 30’ Turkey
Nail Pelivan

You spent it in this way, in all places, too/You cannot find a different sea./This city will follow you./You will walk in same streets, again./You will age in same neighbourhood./Your hair will turn grey in same houses./You will come to this city in the end, coming full circle./how you spent your life, in this corner./You cannot find a new country.


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