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    • New Talents Open Call
      Eastern Neighbours Film Festival (ENFF) began in The Netherlands in 2008 with the idea to offer Dutch and international audiences a unique glimpse into the cinema of their neighbors from Eastern and Southern Europe. This annual event presents the most recent, exciting, and thought‐provoking films, from countries with small, but often powerful film industries, that… Read more: New Talents Open Call
    • ENFF 2023 On Demand!
      Unable To attend the festival in person? No problem! From November 27th to December 3rd, we’re thrilled to bring you a curated selection of this year’s films available for online viewing! Catch our captivating Opening Film Ivan’s Land, or the touching Closing Film Seventh Heaven. Or explore a collection of shorts from the New Talents Competition! Follow along… Read more: ENFF 2023 On Demand!
    • What’s up in Slovak Cinema? A conversation with Monika Lostakova
      We talked with Monika Lošťáková about contemporary Slovak cinema.
    • ENFF and the Eastern European Film Festival Network!
      The Eastern European Film Festival Network brings together five film festivals dedicated to promoting and showcasing Eastern European cinema, alongside one partner organisation.
    • Masterclasses
      Through these masterclasses we approach two memory in film from different angles: memories from a personal or collective recollection through archive material.
    • Work in Progress
      In Work in Progress, emerging filmmakers and artists will present their works in development to the audience and engage in discussions with Dutch experts.
    • Festival Timetable Available!
    • Check out the catalogue for our 2023 edition!
    • Music at ENFF
      Every year, ENFF brings special musical guests who bring beauty to the program and further represent the rich cultures of their countries to a Dutch audience.
    • Film Marathon
      Join us for the Film Marathon, a new concept in which we merge two components, Short Films, Big Stories, and New Talents Competition into a whole-day screening of short films!

On Tour: The Winner of ENFF Competition & Other Glorious Shorts

2 June 2023 | 19:00 hours | Filmtheater Kriterion | Roetersstraat 170, 1018 WE Amsterdam

Together with the arthouse cinema Kriterion, ENFF is organising a special film night of thought-provoking shorts produced in Eastern Europe, including the winner of our New Talents Competition program. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the director of Sugar Free Jasmina Bilic. After the screening, the Eastern Neighbours Film Festival invites you to a cozy Balkan cocktail. Buy tickets here.

PROGRAMME:

Branka by Akos K. Kovacs | Hungary | 2021 | 20 min – The Winner of the ENFF’s New Talents Competititon

Yugoslavia, 1991. Somewhere near the Hungarian border, far away from the war zones and frontlines, Branka – a nurse from Sarajevo – gets a job at a maternity ward of a state hospital. The young woman is all alone, she is far away from her family stuck in the warzone. On her first day she meets Angela who came to deliver her first baby without anyone accompanying her. Strong bonds form between the two of them in a short period of time. They recognize their own vulnerability in each other. However, it soon turns out that loneliness is not the hardest burden Branka has to carry. 

A Pigeon’s Song by Eneos Carka | Albania, Belgium | 2021 | 16 min

Recounting the tragic and forgotten love story of the filmmaker’s Albanian great-grandparents and their forced separation, A Pigeon’s Song deals with a personal story during one of Europe’s harshest communist regimes.  

Director takes the audience on a journey into his family’s past while at the same time discussing the fragility of our memory. Awakened by the sound of a pigeon each morning, the filmmaker makes a daily routine out of leafing through his great-grandfather’s prison diary. He learns that a pigeon also accompanied him as he wrote in his cell. This solitary, timeless pigeon fills the gaps of what is forgotten while awakening unspoken family wounds. Intertwining fiction and reality in a visually experimental manner, the director wants to make sure that the personal and political drama of his family, in fact the drama of several generations, the drama of a country, is not allowed to fade away and be forgotten in the darkest corners of history. 

Babajanja by Ante Zlatko Stolica | Croatia | 2022 | 13 min

An oneiric documentary essay with suspense of a horror awarded at Sarajevo Film Festival and MakeDOX for its stunning visuals and original way of mixing childhood ghosts with harsh reality.

With a suitable, well-chosen tone of the voice over, the film looks back in time. The narrator is trying to find the mysterious woman he was scared of as a child. Digging through his memories, dreams and forgotten horror films, he seeks to discover who she was and where she is today. He includes his family, relatives, fellow villagers in his investigation – no one is particularly keen on helping, but gathering more and more information about her, he is getting closer. 

3 Dialogues About the Future by Alina Manolache | Romania | 2022 | 14 min

New voice of Romanian cinema by the director whose practice stands at the intersection between documentary cinema, artistic research and education. A short film in which three robots discuss life and what it means to be human. 

What is it like to navigate our world as an artificially intelligent robot? What is there to learn about homo sapiens in order to become as ‘human’ as possible? Three pairs of robots take us through their learning process. They track, analyse, and draw information by watching people in different life situations. But their algorithmic vision comes in contrast with a meditative, rather poetic dialogue in which they deconstruct and reassemble the definition of humanity as we know it.

Sugar Free by Jasmina Bilic | The Netherlands | 2022 | 30 min + Q&A with the director

Taking care of your body is an investment but you get something in return that is priceless. A short documentary about extremely high blood sugar, awarded at Pure Magic International Film Festival and Indie Movies Spark FF. 

Sugar Free is an intimate story of Dennis, a man struggling with type 2 diabetes. Through a lighthearted lens, viewers will witness the challenges Dennis faces in managing his illness and the impact it has on his life and relationships. Despite the seriousness of his situation, Dennis finds humour in his journey and shares his story with honesty and vulnerability.