Haphazard travels of Sirman Deville to the Blank Sun

[niminy-piminy]

blank sun

[niminy-piminy]

blank sun

[niminy-piminy]

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[niminy-piminy]

A/
Theo Angelopoulos – SCFZ Directors Poll #167 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... -poll-167/

C/
Costa-Gavras – SCFZ Directors Poll #258 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... -poll-258/

K/
Elia Kazan – SCFZ Directors Poll #114 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... -poll-114/

[sally]

coincidentally i also have a bulgarian film in my DtC submissions, the hare census. funny!

[greennui]

Nikos Nikolaidis. That is the post.

[niminy-piminy]

https://youtu.be/LpzVZhN7pxM

[sally]

THE NEWEST CITY IN THE WORLD (Xhanfize Keko, 1974).
i see, Sally, you bookmarked this as "want-to-watch" so i can place it in Res. if you want???
but the film is absolutely sickening & nauseating!

nah, it's okay, i have no idea why i bookmarked that - probably when i was trawling for albanian films 'that exist' plus woman director - but i've seen tomka (meh) and i despise children, so i shall promptly un-bookmark it and feel pleased that my want-to-watch mountain has become marginally less overwhelming...

is this the place where i ask if iconostasis (Иконостасът) has reappeared to the world with subs again yet? (by the time i ever get to see it, i probably won't even like films like that any more)

[niminy-piminy]

blank sun

[greennui]

This channel's got loads of Nikolaidis' films in HD with English subtitles:

https://www.youtube.com/user/nikosnikol ... s39/videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfs9x0Yxyw0

[Silga]

Some of my contemporary favourites from the region:

The Trap (Srdan Golubovic, 2007)

Circles (Srdan Golubovic, 2013)

Life Is a Miracle (Emir Kusturica, 2004)

Promise Me This (Emir Kusturica, 2007)

The World is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner (Stephan Komandarev, 2008)

Zift (Javor Gardev, 2008)

Chevalier (Athina Rachel Tsangari, 2015)

Attenberg (Athina Rachel Tsangari, 2010)

L (Babis Makridis, 2012)

Apples (Christos Nikou, 2020)

Dogtooth (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2009)

[Mario Gaborovic]

What Elia Kazan and Costa Gavras have to do with Balkan cinema?

Just leave it blank if you possess little to no knowledge of this region's films.

[greennui]

What Elia Kazan and Costa Gavras have to do with Balkan cinema?

Just leave it blank if you possess little to no knowledge of this region's films.

Quite obviously a shout out to their Greek heritage, not really that hard to discern.

[Curtis, baby]

What happened here? Was this the SE euro thread?

[Mario Gaborovic]

What happened here? Was this the SE euro thread?

Maybe Jiri got little upset because of my post above, Idk. I just asked a logical question.

It wasn't my intention to be rude ofc. Though I've never benefited from straightforward openness in real life anyway.

[niminy-piminy]

within my perception, that question was rather rhetorical than logical.
but if i am supposed to give a logical answer then the initial post was listing all the filmmakers from the region (or having at least a vague connection to the region — f.e. Greek ancestors) that were polled on this forum so far.
and logical response to the fact that only one Greek & one Greek/Turkish/American & one Greek/French filmmakers were in sum polled so far would be suggesting all the missing noteworthy filmmakers from the region in the upcoming rounds of the directors' polls.
your straightforward openness is welcomed and i don't demand to be treated politely.
however, i think this thread hardly ever started (there are hardly any posts besides my "blanks") and thus it is still a chance to delete this thread and start a new BETTER one.

[Lencho of the Apes]

It can be deleted, but my perception is that Silga, Green, Mario and Mags should all agree to do that before an admin does anything.

[Silga]

I think Jiri's thread was accurate, but at this point, with all of his posts deleted, I guess a new thread about the same region is the best possible solution. It's a region I'm interested in, so I'd like to see some recommendations and ideas about it.

[niminy-piminy]

It can be deleted, but my perception is that Silga, Green, Mario and Mags should all agree to do that before an admin does anything.

i guess someone can start a new thread, those who want to copy-paste their posts into a new thread can do that, and thereafter this thread can be removed. then everyone can be happy!

[sally]

it's jiri's thread, if he wants it removed, obliterate!

but if we are not simply to abandon that part of the globe maybe two separate greek and romanian threads could be started since they're fairly distinct cinemas (and poor orphans bulgaria & albania will have to piggy-back somewhere else) and mario can curate an exYUG one?

[Mario Gaborovic]

it's jiri's thread, if he wants it removed, obliterate!

but if we are not simply to abandon that part of the globe maybe two separate greek and romanian threads could be started since they're fairly distinct cinemas (and poor orphans bulgaria & albania will have to piggy-back somewhere else) and mario can curate an exYUG one?

As much as I love local cinema, I think one joint thread is enough because people keep leaning towards (and always will) regions like Japan, France, USA, or even Iran. Not perceived as good enough like Soviet or Czechoslovakian cinema, yet not exotic enough like Far East, Africa or South America - even though the countries in question quantitatively exceed the latter productions by a mile.
I'd say, these traits are similar to Benelux for example.

What's there to explain further, as Jirinvk couldn't tell one Balkan director he knows, or even Jerry who, long ago, didn't put a single film made behind an iron curtain to his Top 1000? The First World and the Balkans are as distant as two worlds can be (except maybe Greece which has historical ties to UK). For instance,w hen you plan your trips, you never think of it, right?

Maybe a heterogenous nature couldn't be of help either? I thought about it once. For example the county/district which I originate from, has 27 different nationalities. On the other way, countries like Greece, have that strong BRAND you can recognize, describe, relate to, shape or form recognizable to any foreigner. Ex-YU is just a mishmash of everything that seems bland and murky when it comes to distinctiveness.

[niminy-piminy]

i missed/miss in this forum regional threads, so i started a few.
and whenever i started any i just looked how you folks divided the world while making your country/countries polls in the past.
viz ... https://letterboxd.com/mariogaborovic/l ... scfz-poll/
and all the countries concerned (mentioned in the title of the thread) i always listed in alphabetical order (not to hurt anyone's patriotic feelings).
and besides the link to the related SCFZ country/countries poll, i also listed all the links to the directors' polls (that i was able to find) that were done in the past and that were somehow relevant to the region (i.e. including the directors who were just born in the region or their grandma or grandpa were natives — i omitted all the directors who just ever mentioned being fond of eating some popular regional food or who just spent their summer vacation in the region).
the reason i didn't list any other directors (relevant to the region) is not that i would not be able to list them (due to my nescience).
i just wanted to make it more explicit to what degree the particular region was represented in the past rounds of the director's polls.
and i really hoped that seeing f.e. zero Serbian directors in the initial post of the SEE thread will not trigger hurt feelings but will rather become an impetus to suggest those auteurs in the next rounds of the directors' polls.
i expect this is my last post related to my half-baked SEE cinema "project" & i hope it will be removed at one point so i can forget about it.

[sally]

we knew what you were doing jiri

[Monsieur Arkadin]

. For instance,w hen you plan your trips, you never think of it, right?

I went to Albania on my Honeymoon.

[Umbugbene]

My second-to-last European vacation was to Serbia and Romania, and Croatia is next on my wish list. Also eager to see Albania.

[Mario Gaborovic]

Last month Gloede watched a bunch of Yugo films from the golden era, posted comments at ICM, so if it would be nice of him if he'd copy those over here. I'm also thankful that he took my recommendations for serious.

[niminy-piminy]

It can be deleted, but my perception is that Silga, Green, Mario and Mags should all agree to do that before an admin does anything.

i changed my mind and i don't want this thread to be removed anymore. sorry!
i guess i can still use it for my own incompetent pursuits.
competence has to be sought elsewhere — the best is yet to come.

[Mario Gaborovic]

Okay can moderators change the title to an appropriate one, so we could cut short this unfunny charade?

[Holymanm]

My second-to-last European vacation was to Serbia and Romania, and Croatia is next on my wish list. Also eager to see Albania.

Don't forget Macedonia... Skopje is one of the weirdest places on earth, these years

[Umbugbene]

My second-to-last European vacation was to Serbia and Romania, and Croatia is next on my wish list. Also eager to see Albania.

Don't forget Macedonia... Skopje is one of the weirdest places on earth, these years

That's on my radar too. My dad took a trip to Bulgaria and (now North) Macedonia a few years ago and brought back some fascinating pictures. Also the natural scenery in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro is amazing enough to supply countless Windows 10 intro screens.