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Tag: @eu_fest

War and birth: A tale of a hole in the wall

IN THIS HYPER gender-aware world in which we live, the beast of war still forces slippages back into old stereotypes. With astounding simplicity and boldness, this is the premise of the Ukrainian film Klondike, which is directed, produced, written and edited by Maryna Er Gorbach. You can see […]

Benders to the end of time

FILMS WARNING SOCIETY of the dangers of alcohol addiction may come and go, but Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Round will stay with you for a long time. This Danish work which is unequivocally the king of this year’s European Film Festival South Africa, is available without cost and online […]

Falling in love with Rosa

IF YOU NEED a pick-me-up story that touches on all the bases of being alive and rubbishes traditional values that don’t always have a fairy tale ending in real life, you need to imbibe Rosa’s Wedding. Directed by Icíar Bollaín, this Spanish film is unequivocally, the feisty nectar […]

Who is Zhenia? What is he?

YOU MAY BE forgiven for thinking you’ve keyed into a Neil Gaiman novel in the first few minutes of Malgorzata Szumowska and Michal Englert’s film Never Gonna Snow Again. Featuring Alec Utgoff as a young Russian with many unusual skills, the opening scene in this mysterious but beautiful […]

Of wings and pillow talk

LOSING A PARENT is immensely painful. Losing a parent suddenly can knock not only the wind out of you, but also a whole lot of unresolved issues into the ether. And some of them you may not want to revisit. This is how Antoinette Beumer focuses her complex, […]

Evil giants; hapless mermaids

HOW DO YOU tell your beautiful little six-year-old daughter that she faces a sheer cliff in terms of how the year ahead may look for her health? Little girls are supposed to be thinking about unicorns and mermaids, dragon slayers and princesses, not about whether their arms and […]

How to look after a curmudgeon

RELATIONSHIPS ARE THE glue to life. And they’re the lubricant to most stories. The professional relationship between Aïssa (Déborah Lukumuena) and Georges (Gérard Depardieu) is central to Constance Meyer’s film Robust, which is widely punted as a tale of contrasts. It is available online and without cost, as […]

Death, be not precious

WHAT IF YOU knew that there was a special injunction among the dead that, like the living, they have nine months of a gestation period before they leave us forever? This is one of the premises of a curious Portuguese film entitled The Year of the Death of […]