29 November 2017

Arrhythmia



Boris Khlebnikov : 2017
Aritmiya

Oleg is heading for his thirties. He's a talented paramedic. His ambulance rushes from patient to patient. He knows his timely arrival can tip the scales of life and death. Each of his professional successes makes the world a little better. After a hard shift, he likes to take a few swigs. His wife Katya is also a doctor, working in the hospital's emergency department. But her patience with Oleg is running thin, so she announces one day that she wants a divorce – although they still have to share their poky apartment until Oleg finds a flat. He also discovers there are major changes at his workplace – the new boss at the hospital cares only about statistics and rules, which certainly doesn't make his life any easier. A study of a relationship experiencing an arrhythmia similar to that affecting the hearts of the patients Oleg treats in his ambulance. Boris Khlebnikov's feature premiered at Kinotavr Film Festival 2017, and had its international premiere in competition at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2017.

18 November 2017

Absence of Closeness



Josef Tuka : 2017
Absence blízkosti

Hedvika doesn't have much luck with the men in her life, and when her latest affair with a married man comes to grief she takes her three-month-old daughter Adélka and her dog to live with her mother and boyfriend in a posh country villa. The young woman's relationship with her distant mother isn't ideal, and she also senses her own maternal feelings for Adélka are still somewhat lacking. One day she chances upon some diaries in her mother's house that her late father had written to her when she was a child. Reading the diaries and visiting the places she used to know as a child, conjuring up faint memories and contemplating decisions made long ago – and their consequences – effect a change in her. Josef Tuka's feature debut premiered in competition in the East of the West section at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2017.

10 November 2017

The Day After



Hong Sang-soo : 2017
Geu-hu

Areum looks forward to her first day of work at a small publishing house. Until recently, her boss Bongwan was in a relationship with the girl Areum is replacing. Like every other day, Bongwan leaves home early, and on the way to work he thinks constantly of the love he has lost. But today his wife finds a love letter he wrote and she heads to the publishing house. There she mistakes Areum for the woman who was having an affair with her husband. A tale of love, separation, jealousy, and disappointment. Hong Sang-soo's feature premiered in competition at Festival de Cannes 2017.

4 November 2017

Falling



Marina Stepanska : 2017
Strimholov

Young Anton has just been released from the rehab centre where he had sought treatment for alcoholism and drug addiction. His grandfather, a man of stern principles who brought him up from a young age, takes him off to the country, far from the lure of the big city. One night Anton meets Katia, who, like him, is trying to find her bearings in life, although at least one thing should be clear in her mind: she is shortly to be leaving for Berlin with her boyfriend Johann, a German photojournalist she met during the Maidan demonstrations. Her encounter with Anton, however, brings a new impulse into her life and profoundly affects both of them. Marina Stepanska's feature debut is both a fragile love story and a strong statement on the current young generation as it searches for its place in post-revolutionary Ukraine. Her film premiered in competition in the East of the West section at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2017.