Upcoming: On Tour Kriterion · Fri, 28 Nov · Troubling Masculinities

On November 28th at 18:30h, we will celebrate six years of our beloved New Talents Competition with a special selection curated from all the editions by our programmer Stefan Pavlović. He has chosen five films to be screened at the wonderful cinema Kriterion in Amsterdam.

While putting the programme together, some themes and questions arose. Can the walls of masculinity, set up so long ago through violence and conquest, be breached, broken, recast, or even healed? Perhaps cinema can make a small contribution.

Let us wonder about the insides of masculinity and how to keep troubling it. Let us complicate, expand, and change it by being inside it, close to it, approaching it with intimacy and sensitivity.

These thematic observations emerged while looking back at our editions and choosing these particular films. The filmmakers themselves may not have created their works with these specific questions in mind, but the resonances speak to the power of cinema to reveal unexpected connections and contemporary concerns.

Join us at cinema Kriterion in Amsterdam on the 28th of November at 18:30 hours. The screening duration is 79 minutes. Secure your tickets through the link below.

FILM SELECTION:

THE PRISONER by Łukasz Gierańczyk, Filip Drzewiecki, Poland, 14 min, doc (NTC 2022)
One night with an ex-convict on the streets of Vancouver. Inspired by cinéma-vérité.

COMMUNITY GARDENS by Vytautas Katkus, Lithuania, 15 min, fiction (NTC 2020)
Patriarchal masculinity seems to catch its last breath in the sun. A documentary-style observation on the peaceful and yet indifferent family life in a neighbourhood in the countryside.

YOU IDIOT by Andrija Tomić, Croatia, 10 min, doc (NTC 2024)
After a friendly amateur football match, the author unexpectedly gets a visit from an old “friend”. A film with an uncompromising approach to duration and perspective that is genre-bending and daring.

SONGS FROM THE BACKYARD by Letiția Popa, Romania, 27 min, doc (NTC 2022)
Glimpses from a penitentiary centre, seen from the eyes of Gheorghita, an honest, hard-working inmate, whose spirit is kept alive by the promise of returning to his family.

BOSNIAN WAR MOVIE by Marko Lončarević, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 13 min, doc (NTC 2025)
In the dead of night, a former child actor enters the forest to see if faith and flesh can withstand the lingering ghosts of war, or if fear never fades.