The Samizdat Eastern European Film Festival has today announced its 2024 programme. The festival will take place in Scotland from 1 – 5 October, with a focus on unearthed masterpieces, contemporary features and documentaries, uncategorizable animated oddities and short film gems.
The Festival showcases radical works of cinema at its partner venues Glasgow Film Theatre, CCA Glasgow and Summerhall Edinburgh. Several screenings will also be available to view through the Festival’s online partner Klassiki.
This year, 17 titles — from Estonia to Kyrgyzstan — will compete for the main prize, awarded based on audience voting.
The Festival kicks off on 1 October at the Glasgow Film Theatre with a new instalment of bizarre, eerie, and unique Animations of the late Eastern Bloc (1980-1997). A surgery is performed on a bust of Joseph Stalin, a yeti living in the mountains of Kazakhstan listens to The B-52s, a school of vengeful fish attacks a seaside village, and a man pawns his face to buy a lottery ticket. This collection is of some of the most dreamlike and thought-provoking shorts from a time and place where the animated image served as a stage for unprecedented artistic and political expression. The animation screening will be followed by a free-entry Opening Night celebration at the CCA Glasgow’s Third Eye Bar, featuring Samizdat-themed cocktails and a DJ set by Kernius Linkevicius.
Also at the Glasgow Film Theatre on 4 October, as part of Night Terrors: A Samizdat Special Horror Event, there is a special screening of The Hourglass Sanatorium (Sanatorium pod klepsydr?) (1973) with a recorded introduction by Prof. Ewa Mazierska. This sublimely surreal Alice-in-Wonderland tale by renowned Polish director Wojciech Jerzy Has follows a young Jewish man named Joseph who visits his father in a sanatorium, only to find the place strangely abandoned. As he explores further through its labyrinthine rooms, he starts to lose all grip on time and reality.
Also screening is Juraj Herz’s masterwork of Czechoslovak New Wave, The Cremator (Spalova? mrtvol) (1969) which follows Karel Kopfrkingl, a seemingly mild-mannered crematorium worker who becomes increasingly obsessed with the notion of death as a means of purification.
Screening for the first time with original English subtitles, The Touch (?????????????) (1989) takes place in the Kazakh steppe of the long-gone past as a nomadic blind girl with prophetic abilities crosses paths with a fugitive slave.
There is also Adrian ?ofei’s directorial debut Be My Cat: A Film for Anne (2015), Cheerless (Uzhmuri) (1934), A Picture to Remember (???? ?? ???’???) (2023), part of Samizdat’s annual Ukrainian film programme Lithuanian musical The Devil’s Bride (Velnio Nuotaka) (1974), Tonya Noyabrova’s coming-of-age drama Do You Love Me? (?? ???? ??????) (2023) and Oksana Karpovych’s documentary Intercepted (????i ????) (2024).
Samizdat Film Festival Horror Strand Curator and Festival Director Harriet Idle has said in a press release: “I think that this year’s programme is truly special and offers something for everyone — whether you’re a devout horror fan, have a love for animation, or want to discover some of the artistic richness produced from this part of the world. It’s such a joy for us to showcase some really absorbing, visually stunning films that don’t always receive the visibility they deserve in Scotland.”
The 2024 edition of Samizdat is supported by Screen Scotland’s National Lottery Film Festival and Screening Fund and Film Hub Scotland, part of the BFI’s Film Audience Network, awarding funds from Screen Scotland and National Lottery funding from the BFI. Samizdat’s event co-organised with the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain is jointly funded by Awards for All Scotland.
Tickets are on sale from 10th September through the official website.
