FERAT VAMPIRE is fantastic. Not only is it a fun "Car Horror Film" but it's a nifty little snapshot of Czechoslovakia before the fall of the Iron Curtain. @severinfilms.bsky.social put the transmission into top gear for this one. Also, @marbleicehook.bsky.social gives a fascinating commentary.

If someone gave me $30bn, I wouldn't become "energised and focused", I'd say "thank you very much", put my feet up and enjoy the rest of my now extremely pampered existence in a state of blissed-out relaxation. (Actually, I'd most likely give 99.999% of it away and live comfortably off the rest.)

After watching Michael Brooke's hour-long history of Polish animation on this set last night I now have a better idea of how to pronounce the names of directors that I've been mispronouncing for years. Also a much better idea of the history of Polish animation.

There are 3 types of newspapers columns I am an utter sociopath I am extraordinarily thick Thank Christ for nepotism They can, obviously, overlap

I’m no expert but I would’ve got a person to do it.

Cleaning up the automated transcript of @horrornonna.com and @joshnelsonfilm.bsky.social's latest commentary (which I'm having to create for Sony's legal department; oh, the glamour), I note that one of these esteemed speakers has been rendered as the distinctly Greek-sounding "Alex Helenikos".

This month’s nearly 1,200-page extravagance. I’d been umming and aahing about it for ages, my now 30-year-old copy of Bendazzi’s single-volume ‘Cartoons: One Hundred Years of Cinema Animation’ was getting a bit long in the tooth, and I’ve had than one animation-related commission this year, so...

Today's post, courtesy of the estimable @johnnymains.co.uk (as its creator, not its donor; I was happy to pay for it!). I'm very glad I went for the almost 550-page hardback, as it feels seriously meaty in a way that I imagine the paperback doesn't quite match.

Deeply sobering, but hard to deny right now.

The last couple of minutes of @horrornonna.com and ‪@joshnelsonfilm.bsky.social's commentary for Indicator's upcoming The Taming of the Shrew is now right up there with my favourite commentary endings. (It's not all like this, by the way - the rest is admirably scholarly and informative.) ‬

Nancy Banks-Smith meets Dennis Potter.

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders/Valerie a týden divů (Jaromil Jireš, Czechoslovakia, 1970) This celebrated Gothic-Surrealist fantasy about a young girl on the cusp of womanhood explored, to quote its director, "the juncture of reality and dream and the playful struggle between horror and humour".

Children of Glory/Szabadság, szerelem (Krisztina Goda, Hungary, 2006) By some distance the biggest and splashiest of the handful of films made in Hungary to mark the abortive 1956 uprising's 50th anniversary, this is an unwieldy but often fascinating fusion of local and Hollywood approaches.

Vassilisa the Beautiful/Василиса Прекрасная (Aleksandr Rou, USSR, 1939) Long-term fairytale specialist Rou's second feature was based on a Russian folk tale about a beautiful young maiden cursed by an evil serpent after she spurns its advances, and who is finally freed by the love of an honest man.

I'm contributing an extensive video essay about the history of Polish animation, and as a result I've had a sneak preview of the high-definition masters fuelling this release; the level of fine detail knocks spots off the now ancient PWA Polish animation DVD compilations, as fine as those once were.

The Conductor/Dyrygent (Andrzej Wajda, Poland, 1980) Made just before (and therefore subsequently completely eclipsed by) the monumental Man of Iron, this low-key oddity is quite unlike anything else in Wajda's output, thanks not least to the eye-catching casting of John Gielgud in the title role.

Can’t help but think that my watch and glasses want to put me away for a very long stretch.

The Barnabáš Kos Case/Pripad Barnabáš Kos (Peter Solan, Czechoslovakia, 1964) Barnabáš Kos (Josef Kemr) is a professional triangle player whose undemanding practice routine buys him time to represent his orchestral colleagues on official panels, where he's scrupulous about never rocking the boat.

Flow/Straume (Gints Zilbalodis, Latvia, 2024) Already by far the most successful Latvian film ever made, Gints Zilbalodis’ second feature hit international headlines in February when it became the first film not produced by an established major studio to win Best Animated Feature at the Oscars.

I wrote a fair chunk of this when I was actually in Slovakia a couple of weeks ago. (And normal daily service will resume soon; a week of flu has been followed by a week of manic work catch-ups, which is the curse of being an independent freelancer.)

Apologies for this week's radio silence, especially after I unexpectedly managed to stick to my twice-a-day schedule throughout the entire time that I was in Slovakia.

This is one of the most glorious things I’ve ever seen online, and I’ve been online for a full three decades last month.

On this week's podcast, we spoke with Polish film expert Michael Brooke (@marbleicehook.bsky.social) about the centenary year of Polish master Wojciech Has and his unique legacy, visionary adaptations, and dreamlike cinema. Link in bio 🗣️✨

Transport from Paradise/Transport z ráje (Zbyněk Brynych, Czechoslovakia, 1962)   There have been many distinguished films about life in Nazi-controlled ghettos during WWII, but none quite like this extraordinary evocation of Terezín (Theresienstadt) made less than two decades after its liberation.

Freedom/Libertate (Tudor Giurgiu. Romania/Hungary, 2023) Sibiu, central Romania, December 1989. In the confusion following Ceaușescu’s fall, shots are fired, people are killed, and nobody knows for certain who was responsible. So people are rounded up largely randomly and labelled “terrorists”.

The Cold Summer of 1953/Холодное лето пятьдесят третьего (Alexander Proshkin, USSR, 1988) One of the glasnost era’s bigger local hits, this is set in the months immediately following Stalin’s death and implicitly criticises the Soviet system to a degree that was scarcely imaginable pre-Gorbachev.

They think the box is going to hold him, don’t they? (Fools!)

The Albanian/Shqiptari (Johannes Naber, Albania, 2010)   This German-Albanian production tells a pretty familiar story – a young man needs money in a hurry, and inevitably ends up getting sucked into crime – but is of unusual interest for its specific focus on illegal Albanian immigrants in Germany.

Today’s trip is to the primary location of the first half of the 1922 Nosferatu. We’ve successfully negotiated a train changeover and are now on a slow stopping train wending its way through some impressively vertiginous Tatra mountain scenery.

Apologies for the delay to today’s regular post, but I’m currently up one of the Tatras visiting an original 1922 Nosferatu location (Starý Hrad, literally “Old Castle”, near Žilina), and we reached it bang on 9am UK time. Amazingly, there’s a three-bar 5G signal up here.

Camouflage/Barwy ochronne (Krzysztof Zanussi, Poland, 1977) Along with Andrzej Wajda’s Man of Marble, Camouflage was regarded as one of the first examples of Poland’s famous “cinema of moral anxiety”, although Zanussi pointed out that its core situation could be transplanted pretty much anywhere.

Deadly Spring/Halálos tavasz (László Kalmár, Hungary, 1939)   Had this film's events played out in strict chronological order, it would essentially be a romantic melodrama, set amongst Budapest's moneyed classes, this setting alone providing considerable sociological interest a decade pre-Communism.

I can confirm that this is true and that I am en route to Žilina (via Luton Airport and Bratislava) as I type this. Which is exciting - I’ve been *through* Slovakia before but never directly *to* it.

Tractor, Love and Rock’n’Roll/Traktor, ljubezen in Rock’n’Roll (Branko Đurić, Slovenia, 2008) This extremely broad comedy is set entirely in a Slovenian peasant community, ostensibly in the 1960s, although the only clue to the era comes via the musical tastes of protagonist Breza (Đurić himself).

When I've finished writing about Otar Iosseliani, I'm moving onto Wojciech Jerzy Has (timed to coincide with the upcoming London retrospective in April), but in the meantime here's a beginners' guide to this extraordinary, hugely underrated Polish master that the BFI kindly commissioned from me.

Strike/Стачка (Sergei Eisenstein, USSR, 1925) Not until Orson Welles would a filmmaker so comprehensively exploit the medium's entire expressive vocabulary from the very start of his career, and Eisenstein's debut remains as electrifying today as it must have been at its premiere 90 years ago.

Mystery-Bouffe/Містерія-буф (David Cherkasskiy, USSR, 1969) For decades, Ukraine's first (mostly) animated feature was practically a lost film; released exclusively there, it was banned in the rest of the Soviet Union and not exported. And then Cherkasskiy himself uploaded it to YouTube in 2015.

@carlottafilms.bsky.social has started following me, just as I started ploughing through their superb complete Otar Iosseliani Blu-ray edition, which is an excellent excuse to recommend it pretty much unreservedly. The films are English-friendly; only some extras and the book are in French only.

The Devil Never Sleeps/Čert nespí (Peter Solan/František Žáček, Czechoslovakia, 1956) Shortly after a very slight cultural thaw, two young Slovak filmmakers attempted the kind of social satire that Socialist Realism had hitherto frowned upon, but did it in a decidedly clever and self-reflexive way.

One of the most delightfully idiosyncratic filmmakers to emerge from the Soviet system, Tbilisi-born Otar Iosseliani (1934-2023) spent much of his life in France, where his fusion of profundity and feather-light comedy drew deserved comparisons with Jean Renoir, Jacques Tati and even Luis Buñuel.

Today, my follower count quietly crept past 1,500, which is more than I ever amassed at the other place. And so, partly in gratitude to all you lovely people, but admittedly mostly to make it much easier for me to find my own Bluesky posts, I've put together multiple indexes.

Variola Vera/Вариола вера (Goran Marković, Yugoslavia, 1982) A low-budget disaster movie sounds like a recipe for disaster itself, but this alarmingly topical film about a smallpox outbreak in a Belgrade hospital works brilliantly because the invisibility of the threat is what maintains the terror.

Camera Buff/Amator (Krzysztof Kieślowski, Poland, 1979) A decade into his career, Kieślowski finally achieved international acclaim when his second fiction feature toured festivals – and no wonder; unlike more hermetic Polish films, it tackled universal concerns about creativity and censorship.

Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time/Felkészülés meghatározatlan ideig tartó együttlétre (Lili Horvát, Hungary, 2020) Neurosurgeon Márta (Natasa Stork) is fascinated by how her own mind functions; if she can't open up her own skull, she's worked out a psychological equivalent.

Christmas. Uncensored/Tyli naktis (Māris Martinsons, Lithuania, 2012) Owing more than a little to Thomas Vinterberg’s Festen (including the hand-held Dogme-style camerawork and choppy editing), this Lithuanian black comedy is about a Christmas family get-together from the very bowels of hell.

Names in Marble/Nimed marmortahvlil (Elmo Nüganen, Estonia, 2002) It’s easy to see why this was a huge local blockbuster; its literary source (Albert Kivikas’ eponymous 1936 novel) had been banned for decades by the Soviet Union because of its depiction of the 1918-20 Estonian War of Independence.

The Stolen Border/Uloupená hranice (Jiří Weiss, Czechoslovakia, 1947) Weiss started out as a documentary-maker in his native Czechoslovakia, continued in exile in Britain during WWII, and then returned home to make a fascinating feature debut set in 1938 but impossible to watch without hindsight.

Forgive the indulgence, but today is the 100th day since I started publishing daily 9am posts about central-eastern European films. This was in response to my follower count suddenly exploding thanks to one of those Bluesky starter packs, so I thought I should probably come up with regular content.

An Unforgettable Summer/O vară de neuitat (Lucian Pintilie, Romania, 1994) Immediately after Four Weddings and a Funeral, Kristin Scott Thomas deftly avoided typecasting by playing a trilingual leading role (Romanian plus some English and French) for Romania's most acclaimed 20th-century director.

The Boxer and Death/Boxer a smrť (Peter Solan, Czechoslovakia, 1962) One of the outstanding Slovak films of its decade, this WWII drama should be much better known than it is. Kominek (Štefan Kvietik) is a concentration camp prisoner facing imminent execution when he gets an unexpected reprieve.