ENFF 2025 Kicks off Tomorrow!

The wait is almost over! From tomorrow onwards, you can enjoy the finest cinema from broader Eastern Europe in Filmhuis Den Haag. Get ready for a cultural celebration with five days of inspiring films, panels, Q&A’s, delicious wine and much more. We can’t wait to create lasting memories with you all during our 17th edition! Altough our opening Wednesday night is completely sold out, we have much more in store for you the next day. Check out some of Thursday’s highlights that you may have missed below!

Dajori

A remarkable testament to the human spirit and resilience of a Roma mother who takes in her sister’s two children from the streets, confronting trauma and systemic neglect.

Dajori (meaning “mother” in Romani) tells the powerful story of Marie, a mother of three living in a flat in a small Czech town. When her sister ends up on the streets with her nine children, she steps in and takes two-year-old Anabel and nine-year-old Samuel into her already full household.

Filmed over the course of three years, the documentary closely follows the evolving dynamics of a newly formed family, and Marie’s efforts to give these traumatised children the love and stability they need, while raising them according to her own values. Grounded in the personal, everyday moments of the family, the film sheds light on the deeper, systemic issues at play in a world where minorities are often held solely responsible for societal disruptions.

Sandbag Dam

In a Croatian village that threatens to be destroyed by a flood, Marko tries to keep his feelings under control when a forbidden love from the past returns to his life.

A gifted athlete, expected by his father to become a car mechanic, faces turmoil when his first and forbidden love returns. Torn between loyalty to his girlfriend and resurfacing emotions, Marko grows increasingly restless and surpressed feelings begin to surface, like water finding its way through the tiniest cracks. Tension is built through subtle details: moments of closeness – like sharing a cigarette or a dreamy car ride – become a fragile form of resistance against the cruelty of everyday life and the weight of homophobia.

While the villagers build a dam of sandbags, Marko constructs his own wall of silence. But just as floods break through levees, feelings always find a way.

When Lightning Flashes over the Sea

A cinematic journey through war-torn Odessa, in which the director poetically captures the lives and dreams of a city that keeps on going.

Mythologised in film and history for centuries, the city of Odesa is once again under siege. Yet filmmaker Eva Neymann turns her gaze not to destruction, but to the people: their dreams, their resilience, and their will to live despite the war.

Shot over two years, the film captures daily life in extraordinary times: a boy making wishes as lightning flashes over the sea, a widow caring for stray cats, girls taking selfies, and a mother cooking and remembering her son.

Sometimes still and contemplative, sometimes moving with the rhythm of direct cinema, Neymann reveals a city both fragile and strong. A quiet, poetic testimony that even under bombardment, Odesa remains a city of hope.

Let’s raise a glass to an amazing edition!

We wouldn’t be ENFF if we didn’t have delicious wines from the region available for you. On Thursday, 6th of November, we raise our glasses twice:

Join us for wines and snacks before the screening of Eighty Plus, kindly provided by the embassy of Slovenia. Besides, the embassy of Montenegro will provide delicious wines to cheers with after the screening of One Man Avalanche.