5 November 2008 | The Eastern Neighbours film festival will show over 30 films from the Balkans region in the Louis Hartlooper Complex in the Dutch city of Utrecht between November 6 and 9.

The festival, dedicated to Eastern and South-Eastern European cinema and culture, has three main aims, according to Rada Šešić, its artistic director: to showcase the region’s cinema, which is “modern in cinematic style and appealing for the world audience” while at the same time having kept its unique “Eastern European black humour” and “Eastern European sense of storytelling”; to allow the Dutch to get acquainted with its neighbours some of which have already joined the EU (Bulgaria and Romania) and some of which will in the future; and to broaden the Dutch audience’s “knowledge and mind about Muslims and their culture” through films from Balkan countries that have significant Muslim population, such as Bosnia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Albania, and Kosovo.

More than 30 films, most of which were never released in the Netherlands, will be shown in the four-day festival programme, which has a special focus on Macedonia. The films screened as part of this focus include Milcho Manchevski’s latest film Shadows, Aneta Lesnikovska’s Does it Hurt?, Igor Ivanov’s Upside Down, Svetozar Ristovski’s Mirage, Stole Popov’s documentary Gypsy Birth and Aleksandar Spasovski’s Voyeur.

The Albanian film featured in the programme is Kujtim Çashku’s Magic Eye while the documentary Weddings and Diapers is included in the festival’s Kosovo selection. The selected Bulgarian films are Boris Despodov’s Corridor#8 and Adela Peeva’s Divorce Albanian Style, while the Romanian films are Nicolae Margineanu’s Exchange and Radu Jude’s The Tube with the Hat.

The Serbian films that are to be screened in Utrecht are Oleg Novkovic’s Tomorrow Morning, Mladen Maticevic’s How to Become a Hero, as well as the UK-Serbian production Tito’s Ghost, directed by Mira Erdevicki and the Swiss-Croatian-Bosnian-Serbian production Das Fräulein, directed by Andrea Staka. The 1971 Yugoslavian film Plastic Jesus will also be shown.

The Croatian films to be screened as part of the Eastern Neighbour festival include Dalibor Matanic’s Kino Lika, Tanja Golic’s Its Not That I don’t Know, It’s Just The Way It Is and N. Sesic-Fischer’s Memories, while the selection from Bosnia are What Do I Know by Sejla Kameric and Timur Makarevic, Informative Talks by Namik Kabil, Snack by M. Agic and Mum and Dad by Faruk Loncarevic.

The Turkish programme includes the films Flag by E. Kokun, Takva by Özer Kiziltan and My Mother Learns Cinema by Nesimi Yetik.

In addition, a few films from Russia, Moldova and Belorussia will also be screened as part of the festival.

To see the full programme and venues, visit the festival’s official website.