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More of a poem than a conventional narrative, Signe Birkova’s vividly detailed feature début is a luscious tribute to the world of silent film, a disjointed and dreamlike fable about the strange days in 1919 when the future seemed about to be born, before women had been squeezed out of creative roles and history had veered off along the path that brought us to where we are today. That it begins with a visit to a fortune teller teases us with the idea that there are many possible paths but, as the woman with the swinging crystal tells us shortly after vomiting out her own heart and turning into a nun, just one inescapable fate.

The person consulting the fortune teller is Alice von Trott (Severija Janušauskaitė), whose curiosity about her fate stems from the discovery that she has inherited a mansion in a remote part of Latvia. This turns out.

Premiering at Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (aka PÖFF), which kicks off November 8 in Estonia, Signe Birkova’s Lotus is among the lineup’s most intriguing titles. Shot on a mix of 8mm, 16mm, and 35mm, including silent-film portions shot with a Debrie Parvo camera from 1921, the film is a dreamlike musical carousel following Lithuanian actress Severija Janušauskaitė as Alice von Trotta, an underdog silent-cinema director. Ahead of its premiere, we’re pleased to exclusively debut the first trailer.

Here’s the synopsis: “Baltic German Alice von Trotta returns to her late father’s manor in Latvia in 1919. She intends to sell it and start a new life. During her stay, she meets some local laborers who demonstrate hostility and show resistance. Moreover, Alice discovers that she has been lured into a carefully tailored trap, organized by the demonic lawyer Emil Keyserling, a decadent underground organization Viva LA Mort, and its necrophile leader Sieba Falstaff.

One of Northern Europe’s leading festivals, the A-listed Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (also known as PÖFF) unspooling Nov. 8-24 in the Estonian capital, has unveiled its first features and inaugural documentary competition programs, each boasting an enticingly curated slate of 11 titles.

Among the seven world premieres selected for the First Feature strand are Germany’s “No Dogs Allowed” by student Academy Award nominated Steve Bache tackling the taboo subject of paedophilia in teen years; “Two of Me”, the humorous meta story of twin brothers dreaming to make it big in movies, helmed by Estonian twins “the Eskobros”; and “A Yard of Jackals”, Chilean thriller set during Pinochet’s dictatorship toplining Néstor Cantillana and Blanca Lewin from HBO’s “Fugitives” (“Prófugo”).

Programmer Triin Tramberg said the First Feature selection committee watched 250 films from 66 countries, picking those with the biggest sales and distribution potential.

“We don’t have industry people...

Last week, we launched a new page at JoBloYouTubeNetwork.com, where you can access all of our YouTube channels from one place. Now we have some very cool news to share about our YouTube network, as JoBlo Media and Octane Multimedia are partnering on a new channel named JoBlo TV, which will host feature films to watch for free every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday! The channel launches Today, and the genres we’ll be focusing on are Action, Horror, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Thrillers.

The first free-to-watch movie to be featured on JoBlo TV will be the Russian sci-fi action film A Rough Draft. Check it out:

Directed by Sergey Mokritskiy, who also crafted the screenplay with Maksim Budarin, Denis Kuryshev, and Olga Sobenina (based on a novel by Night Watch author Sergey Lukyanenko), A Rough Draft has the following synopsis: A video game designer is stripped of his identity and...

A scene from the German TV historical series “Babylon Berlin” Season 2. Courtesy of MHz Choice

As promised in last month’s review of the German historical thriller “Babylon Berlin: Season One” (https://www.wearemoviegeeks.com/2024/04/babylon-berlin-season-one-review/), May bestows upon us the bounty of Seasons Two and Three, in which Germany’s political and economic upheavals deepen. These two seasons remain in 1929, bringing us up to the global you-know-what that led to the Great Depression. The train with its mysterious, hazardous contents remains in play among several factions with assorted motives.

Both seasons are longer – 10 and 12 episodes, respectively – which may not have been a plus. The pace seems slower than before, with less overt action per hour. The suspense and looming aura of menace, however, are ramped up and broadened, with more characters bringing more subplots and social issues into the picture. Rath is still our beleaguered hero; Charlotte’s role...

“Babylon Berlin: Season One” is the beginning of a complex political crime period drama that has run for four seasons in Germany, with a fifth yet to come. It’s won a scheisse-load of awards and nominations for the series and many of its components, and is best appreciated by concentrated viewing – preferably in binges – rather than casual or background entertainment.

It’s set in 1929. Gereon Rath (Volker Bruch) is an honest, intelligent cop who has just moved to the titular city. He’s paired with Burno Wolter (Peter Kurth), a brutish fellow detective of questionable virtue. The former looks like mellowed version of Tim Roth; the latter somewhere between Gert Frobe and Simon Oakland. The crimes they’re assigned to cover seem local, but lead quickly down the rabbit hole of international intrigue, overrun with individual and group conflicts, misdirection and betrayals, spanning from Russia to Germany and beyond.

On the JoBlo Movies YouTube channel, we will be posting one full movie every day of the week, giving viewers the chance to watch them entirely free of charge. The Free Movie of the Day we have for you today is the 2018 Russian sci-fi action movie A Rough Draft. You can watch the movie over on the YouTube channel linked above, or you can just watch it in the embed at the top of this article.

Directed by Sergey Mokritskiy, who also crafted the screenplay with Maksim Budarin, Denis Kuryshev, and Olga Sobenina (based on a novel by Night Watch author Sergey Lukyanenko), A Rough Draft has the following synopsis: A young resident of Moscow, Kirill is a talented designer of computer games. One day, he is completely erased from the memory of everyone he knew and loved. Kirill learns that he is chosen for an important and mysterious mission.

Cinema is a vehicle for investigating historical scars in “Isaac,” a starkly beautiful drama about a filmmaker who returns to his native Lithuania in 1964 to make a movie about a WWII slaughter, and becomes embroiled alongside his schoolmate in totalitarian trouble. Adapted from a short story by Antanas Skema, director Jurgis Matulevicius’ feature debut — Lithuania’s entry to the Oscar international feature race — is Its obliqueness may preclude it from attracting a wide domestic audience, but such haziness is part and parcel of a work about the lingering, lethal fog of war.

“Isaac” opens with the 1941 Lietukis garage massacre of 40 Lithuanian Jews at the hands of Nazis and their local mob-like collaborators. Shot in sumptuous black and white (as is two-thirds of the ensuing film), and with the sort of roving, wobbly, serpentine camerawork favored throughout by Matulevicius and talented cinematographer Narvydas Naujalis, this scene evokes the grimy brutality of “Son of Saul,...

Jurgis Matulevicius: 'The camerawork and lighting are very important to me and I spent a lot of time on that' Photo: Courtesy of Tallinn Black Nights The present is haunted by the past in Jurgis Matulevicius' smart and complex debut film, that mixes Cold War elements and soul-searching with a love triangle plotline and psychological thriller. It centres on a trio of of characters, film director Gediminas (Dainius Gavenonis), his old friend Andrius (Aleksas Kazanavicius) and Andrius' wife Elena (Severija Janusauskaite), whose lives are tied up to a lesser or greater degree with the death of a Jewish man, Isaac, in the Lietukis Garage Massacre. The film is adapted from a short story by  Antanas Skema, a Lithuanian author whose stream of consciousness approach you can feel in the fluidity of Isaac's narrative.

When we caught up with Matulevicius in Tallinn - where his film screened in the First...

Olias Barco shooting Polina with international cast.

Ukraine’s reputation as a location for international shoots has been given a welcome boost this week as production begins on the English-language family adventure-fantasy Polina by the French-Belgian director Olias Barco (Kill Me Please) in Kyiv.

The cast of the co-production between the Belgian-French company Wild Tribe Films and Ukraine’s Film.UA features an international cast including German-born Canadian actor Saul Rubinek, Audrey Marnay (The Monuments Men), Virgile Bramly (Inception), Wim Willaert (When The Sea Rises), Daniel Cohen (Le Chef) and Severija Janusauskaite (The Star), with the French DoP Thierry Arbogast, known for his collaboration with Luc Besson on such films as The Fifth Element and Lucy, behind the camera.

Ukrainian child actor Polina Pechenenko is cast in the title role as a 11-year-old girl setting off on a magical journey in search of the truth about her lost parents.

Shooting is located at the Film.UA studios...

Alexander Kott’s love story [pictured] awarded the Grand Prix and the prize for best cinematography.

Alexander Kott’s Test was the big winner at this year’s Kinotavr Open Russian Film Festival at the Black Sea resort of Sochi.

The jury headed by Cannes prize-winner Andrey Zvyagintsev awarded its Grand Prix “for the realisation of the dream” and the prize for best cinematography to Kott’s love story, set against the first hydrogen bomb tests in the Kazakh Steppe at the beginning of the 50s.

In addition, Kott’s film received the Elephant Trophy from the Guild of Film Critics and Film Scholars.

Test is handled internationally by Anton Mazurov’s fledgling Russian sales company Ant!pode Sales & Distribution, which saw its other three new titles by four women directors coming away from this year’s Kinotavr with trophies and diplomas in their luggage:

Anna Melikian’s Star received the prizes for best direction and best actress...