The Ex-World: Films from Post-Socialist Europe, 1990-2010

Venue: Bergamo (Italy)
Period: Mar. 12 - 20, 2011

1990-2010: two decades have elapsed since the end of real socialism in Eastern Europe. In this period, a world has fallen apart and a new one has arisen. After post-wall euphoria, a complex phase began for former socialist countries, which face trauma, war, migrations, social and financial difficulties to find their way to peace and normality.
For the occasion of the Bergamo Film Meeting, one section will host 8 films, released between 1990 and 2010, from countries such as Romania, Poland, Albania and the Czech Republic, which describe this transition’s effects on people – the confusion, but also the courage of the men and women who have been the protagonists of history.

Lost and Found: 6 Glances at a Generation
by Stefan Arsenijevic, Nadezhda Koseva, Mait Laas, Kornél Mundruczó, Cristian Mungiu, Jasmila Zbanich (Bosnia Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Estonia, Germany, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, Hungary 2007, 99’)
Six young producers from the former soviet bloc give a personal contribution on the theme of generational confrontation and the differences existing between their and their parents way of living, thinking and feeling emotions.

Marshal Tito's Spirit
by Vinko Brešan (Croatia 2000, 97’)
Rumors say that Marshal Tito’s ghost has been seen on a Croatian islet. Many people rush there to see with their own eyes and the Mayor smells a business opportunity from this brand-new tourism. But for their part, the Partisan veterans forsee the chance of bringing communism back in the village and take arms.

Bolshe Vita
by Ibolya Fekete (Hungary 1996, 97’)
Summer 1989: Hungary opens the borders and a new wave of migration from Eastern Europe begins. Political refugees, poor people, adventurers, members of the mafia: everybody pass through Hungary to go West, towards the “New World”. They are the heroes of this story. 

Hi, Tereska
by Robert Glinski (Poland 2001, 86’)
Tereska is fifteen years old and lives with her family in a typical building of the communist age. Her mother is a worker, whereas her father is half-alcoholic and unemployed. Tereska dreams about a different life, she wants to become a fashion designer. At the sewing school she meets Renata, an easy girl who makes her try her first cigarette, her first glass of wine, teaches her stealing and kissing men. 

Cosy Dens
by Jan Hrebejk (Czech Republic 1999, 115’)
At the end of the Sixties two families, the Šebeks and the Krauses, live side by side in a two-family house in Prague. Their life runs quietly, with Christmas parties, spats, school, and new loves occuring, until Soviet invasion in August 1968. 
 
The Debt
by Krzysztof Krauze (Poland 1999, 101’)
To start a new business two young entrepreneurs ask for a loan from an old friend of theirs, who is a gangster without scruples. But between the menaces, blackmails and guilt ,the two protagonists fall into a real nightmare, which they do not know how to escape. The movie is inspired by a famous true story that occurred in Poland in the Nineties. 

The Way I spent the End of the World
by Catalin Mitulescu (Romania, France 2006, 106’)
Bucharest 1989: the last year of the dictatorship. After breaking Ceausescu’s bust, Eva is tried before the disciplinary commission of her high school and sent to a reformatory. Here she meets a young man coming from a dissident family and they plan to escape Romania. Convinced that Ceausescu is the reason of all his sister’s troubles, Eva’s little brother looks for a plan to assassinate the dictator.

Slogans
by Gjergj Xhuvani (France, Albania 2001, 90’)
Albania, towards the end of the 1970s: Andre is the new teacher at the primary school of a little village in the mountains. To his amazement, on the first school day he discovers that his first duty is to organize the students to write communist slogan on the slops of the hill.

Bergamo Film Meeting
address: via Pignolo, 123
24121 Bergamo
tel.: 0039.035.363087
e-mail: info@bergamofilmmeeting.it