Enjoy SEEfest at Your Home – Part 3

The SEEfest retrospective continues! Following is part three in the series of posts SEEfest at Your Home, featuring films that were included in previous Festivals.

You can find Part 1 here, and Part 2 here. And, please let us know which films you’re revisiting or watching for the first time. We’d love to know which are your faves.

LOSERS

Inseparable friends Elena, Koko, Patso, and Gosho are high school students in a small provincial town in Bulgaria. They mockingly call themselves ‘losers’ as a self-deprecating reference to the society at large. Hapless Koko is in love with rebellious Elena, who harbors hopes of becoming a singer. When a rock band of traveling musicians comes to town things get complicated, giving birth to new love affairs, disappointments, and realizations that come with growing up. In the great ensemble cast Elena Telbis and Ovanes Torosyan shine.

First screened in the U.S. at SEEfest 2016 and picked up for distribution by Synergetic Films. Directed by Ivaylo Hristov. Main cast: Elena Telbis, Ovanes Torosyan, Georgi Gotsin

LOSERS is available on Amazon.

BRASSLANDS

Wild, riotous brass music draws tens of thousands of people each year to a tiny Serbian village of Guča for the largest brass band competition festival in the world. The performers highlighted in the film include an American brass band from New York, named ’Zlatne Uste,’ and a veteran Serbian trumpeter returning to the festival to defend his status as a reigning champion. Screened at SEEfest 2014.

Directed by: Meerkat Collective – Adam Pogoff, Bryan Chang, Jay Arthur Sterrenberg. Featuring: Demiran Cerimovic, Dejan Petrovic, ‘Zlatne Uste’ Balkan Brass Band.

BRASSLANDS is available on Amazon Prime.

BALCONY

Shot in one continuous take, this hilarious and many-times awarded short film from Kosovo is a finely crafted study of human nature and capacity for ‘much ado about nothing.’ Screened at SEEfest 2014.

Directed by Lendita Zeqiraj. Main Cast: Arben Bajraktaraj, Sevdai Radogoshi, Osman Ahmet.

BALCONY is available on Amazon Prime.

HALF SHAVED

In post-communist Romania, a barber recognizes his former torturer as his latest customer. What ensues is a reverse cat-and-mouse situation with barber holding the razor in his hand. Screened at SEEfest 2014.

Directed by Bogdan Muresanu. Main cast: Victor Rebengiuc, Michel Horatiu Bob, Alexandru Georgescu.

HALF SHAVED is available on Amazon Prime.

A STEP INTO THE DARKNESS

Shot on location under extremely dangerous conditions in Iraqi cities of Arbil and Mosul, and in Adiyaman, Urfa, and Istanbul, Turkey, the film follows a young woman, the sole survivor of a US-led operation against insurgents in her village in US-occupied Iraq. She is rescued by the members of a radical Islamist organization and brought to Istanbul, where she is groomed by a charismatic religious figure to carry out his devastating plan. The Film screened at SEEfest 2010.

Directed by Atil İnaç. Main cast: Suzan Genc, Selen Ucer, Serdal Genc, Rana Cabbar, Selim Bayraktar.

A STEP INTO THE DARKNESS is available on Google play.

SUPERMAN, SPIDERMAN OR BATMAN

A young boy goes on a journey with his worried father. Like the titular comic books superheroes, he too wishes to save his mother suffering from a heart condition. Screened at SEEfest 2013.

Directed by Tudor Giurgiu. Main cast: Zsolt Bogdan.

SUPERMAN, SPIDERMAN OR BATMAN is available on Amazon Prime.

DINNER FOR FEW

In this acclaimed short animation, a dinner turns bloody in an allegorical depiction of the modern Greek society beset with economic troubles. Screened at SEEfest 2015.

Directed by: Nassos Vakalis.

DINNER FOR FEW is available on Amazon Prime.

You can now deduct 100% of your contribution in 2020!

Consider making a donation to SEEfest and taking advantage of the provisions in the COVID-19 stimulus package regarding charitable giving, specifically aimed at non-profits: Charitable Giving Tax Deduction The stimulus legislation lifts the existing cap on annual contributions for itemizers from 60 percent of adjusted gross income (AGI) to 100 percent of AGI for contributions made in 2020.

Additionally, an “above-the-line” or universal charitable giving incentive for contributions made in 2020 of up to $300. This provision will now allow all non-itemizer taxpayers (close to 90% of all taxpayers) to deduct charitable contributions from their tax return, an incentive previously unavailable to them.

Click the donate button or send a check made out to the South East European Film Festival, and mail to 7119 W. Sunset Blvd., Unit 306, Los Angeles, CA 90046. Thank you!

SEEfest program and activities are supported, in part, by the California Arts Council, a state agency; Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Department of Art and Culture; and presented with the support of the City of West Hollywood. For more info on WeHo Arts programming please visit www.weho.org/arts or follow via social media @WeHoArts. Special thanks to ELMA, and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for their continued support of our programs.