The Blockade (2012)
Genre : Documentary
Runtime : 1H 32M
Director : Igor Bezinović
Synopsis
The Blockade is a unique view from within on the most massive, longest, and politically most significant student protest in the country, since 1971, that started in April of 2009 at the Faculty of humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb. The struggle against the commercialization of education and the blockade of teaching classes lasted for 34 days. The rebellion spread onto more than 20 faculties across the country and the students became an active and relevant political subject. The director followed everything: from the exhilarating preparation meetings and blocking of classes to the first signs of exhaustion, through personal situations and discussions late at night, from the initial support of most faculty members to the moment they turned their back to the movement and the attempt to reach the missing minister of education. This film shows that the blockade was not just physical and that it has a much broader meaning.
Portrait of a troubled peasant family. The film tells the story of two times widow Anna Belova who lives together with her brother Mikhail. Blending the two personalities, Kosakovsky characterizes the true Russian soul: she is the rational worker, honest and strong - he is the drunken poet, the idealist, his philosophy fades into radical nonsense time after time.
Free-diver Goran Colak has dedicated his life to surviving devoid of oxygen. Driven by a desire to be the best in the world, Goran has achieved every feat possible in the sport of free-diving. In doing so he has expanded our understanding of human capability, floating in an arrested state somewhere between life and death. Beautifully lyrical, My Life Without Air demonstrates the power of will to transcend its body's earthly limitations.
Between the first UK student protests in November 2010 and the global uprising in the spring of 2011, a new radicalism, fuelled by modern technology, has hit the streets. Over 6 months of government cuts, a collective of filmmakers has had exclusive access to the backroom meetings of a group of London students as they hacked software, occupied universities and shut down banks. In the process, they've helped build the movement currently sending ripples across the globe.
A romantic couple's brief encounter with a few philosophical thugs unfolds in an unusual way. After this night no one will be the same. Everyone will learn something new.
Made in the form of an extended news report and narrated by journalist Dina Čolić-Anđelković, the film presents a snapshot of the chaotic Belgrade criminal underworld in the early 1990s which sprung up against the backdrop of Yugoslav wars. The film is composed of fragments from interviews with individuals directly involved with criminal activities either through perpetrating them or through trying to stop them.
The filmmaker's mother, Ethel Wardrop, talks about her own body and the role it played in her loving relationship with her dear husband.
A documentary essay about the relationships among Mediterranean men and their games. The film takes the form of a travelogue across Croatia, Italy, Slovenia and Turkey, and examines men, young and old, who come together like their ancestors did – to play games. During filming, however, the director suddenly faces a serious creative crisis and turns the camera on himself, turning the film into a playful homage to absurdity.
Matchmaker Nediljko Babic, also known as "Gangster", helps a Bulgarian single mother find a new husband in Croatia. But a series of comically disastrous dates discloses the true nature of conservative Croatian men: they would rather die alone than marry a foreigner with a child.
The film investigates the adventures of mountain climber and photographer Adam J. Winkler, who fought in Afghanistan with the Mujahideen against the Soviets in the 1980s. The director employs a highly original artistic technique involving animated collage of period materials.
Before Lance Armstrong, there was Greg LeMond, who is now the first and only American to win the Tour de France. In this engrossing documentary, LeMond looks back at the pivotal 1986 Tour, and his increasingly vicious rivalry with friend, teammate, and mentor Bernard Hinault. The reigning Tour champion and brutal competitor known as “The Badger,” Hinault ‘promised’ to help LeMond to his first victory, in return for LeMond supporting him in the previous year. But in a sport that purports to reward teamwork, it’s really every man for himself.
Danko Babic is an ambitious and amoral gynaecologist at Croatia's leading fertility clinic. When his colleague Bantic is appointed as head of the clinic, Babic starts a secret war to overthrow his rival. Distracted by his ruthless campaign he makes series of fatal mistakes that result in the death of a patient. A crooked coroner and a corrupt police officer cover up his misdeeds, while Babic grows increasingly dependant on drugs and alcohol. He begins performing illegal abortions on prostitutes who work for Jedinko, a gangster who controls the local drug and sex trade.
In the autumn of 1991, a small group of Croatian soldiers go on patrol in an improvised armored vehicle. Soon after that they would get ambushed and their vehicle would get destroyed, in that situation they were forced to hide in a nearby house. Whilst stationed in that house they would get attacked by rebel Serbs, Serbian Special Forces and the JNA (Yugoslav People's Army, also reffered to as Yugoslavian National Army). Their resistance to the attackers would last 24 hours whilst their fellow combatants would attempt to try and get them out of there. The movie and story is based on true events which happened during the Croatian War of Independence.
Igor Gordić was an Olympic champion in shooting, but now he is a junky without money and in debts to mafia. Saša is his younger brother and he is getting ready for the next World Championship. Since he's not getting enough terms to practice indoors, he has decided to go out and find himself a target to practice on.
This is a powerful documentary, filmed over a 16 year span, about the rise of a Coalition of six lions, branded The Mapogo Lions, and their takeover of the largest territory by a pride.
The movie is based on the fascinating, true story of a feral boy whom hunters found among wolves in a forest in the mountains of Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) in the mid-1980s. The boy was sent to the institution for children in an attempt to socialize him and got the Muslim name – Haris. Contrary to most predictions, he was developing and making friends quickly. When the war in BiH broke out in 1992, Haris got the letter from local Bosnian authorities which asked for his immediate return. Upon returning to BiH, he had nowhere to go. While wandering aimlessly, he came across a group of soldiers that gave him a gun and took him with them
A visual representation, in four parts, of one man's internalization of "The Divine Comedy." Hell is a series of multicolored brush strokes against a white background; the speed of the changing images varies. "Hell Spit Flexion," or springing out of Hell, is on smaller film stock, taking the center of the frame. Montages of color move rapidly with a star and the edge of a lighted moon briefly visible. Purgation is back to full frame; blurs of color occasionally slow down then freeze. From time to time, an image, such as a window or a face, is distinguishable for a moment. In "existence is song," colors swirl then flash in and out of view. Behind the vivid colors are momentary glimpses of volcanic activity.
The brutally honest story of Robert's turbulent relationship with a self-destructive, yet charismatic friend from childhood, who cries out for help from a military hospital in China and sets Rob on a wild ride to get him home to Vancouver.
Eliciting images of cancer, this drama explores the illnesses that plague modern Croatia. Four young junkies in Zagreb maturing in the wake of war reflect the petty hatreds, violence, prejudices and mood hanging over the country like a disease that spreads with no cure in sight.
A series of dark and troubling events forces Bill to reckon with the meaning of his life - or lack thereof. Winner of the Short Film Grand Prize at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.
Immediately after his death, the victim of a car crash gets answers to every question he's ever had about his life, including the most import one of all - what did it all mean?
