Eastern European cinema battles in post-communist world (Feature)

Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic - For Central and Eastern European (CEE) filmmakers the two decades since the implosion of communism in 1989 have been a rather sobering and at times fraught experience. Within a short space of time, the collapse the Soviet-backed states across the CEE pushed movie making in the region to the brink of an abyss with state support drying up and cinemas closing down or converted to sex clubs or discos. In the harsh new post-communist world filmmakers were left to find their own way. 'In 1989 we were reborn,' said Nemenyi Adam, whose career in the Hungarian movie industry spans about quarter of a century. 'We had to change,' Adam told the German Press Agency dpa at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, which is held each year in the historic Czech spa town. 'Suddenly we had to be like producers everywhere. We had to make money,' he said. Moreover, just as the CEE motion picture industry struggled to find its feet in the wake of the fall of communism, another potentially lethal rival appeared on the movie scene as Hollywood productions began filling up what was left of the region's cinemas. But Eastern European film has proved to be been remarkably resilient with a revival now underway in the region's movie making as directors explore both life under communism as it ground its way to collapse as well as the changes triggered by its fall. 'Time has moved faster during those 20 years, new things have happened and for many of us who lived through that period, those times seem very far away,' said Karlovy Vary Film Festival President Jiri Bartoska. Of the 14 movies competing for Karlovy Vary's top honours, the Crystal Globe for best feature film, four are from Central European directors with the festival now a major showcase for new Central and European cinema. Also spurring on CEE filmmakers have been the recent success of Eastern European movies at the world's major movie festivals. This includes Bucharest-based Cristian Mungiu's 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, which is set during the dark days of Nicolae Ceaucescu's reign and which won the Cannes Film Festival's prestigious Palme d'or prize in 2007. A decade ago there were no films being made in Romania, yet now the industry manages to pump out between 10 and 20 a year. But whatever progress the new young CEE democracies may have made towards forging new western-style economies, the dreams of what the end of communism might mean appear to have faded. Many of the movies screened at Karlovy Vary this year present a rather dispiriting and even desolate portrayal of life since communism was swept away two decades ago. The picture they paint is a world where one-time communist chiefs have excelled, a grim border sex tourism trade has flourished, and gypsies face prejudice and heavy-handed bureaucratic treatment and where primitive blood feuds have returned to Albania. 'People were forced to lay their blood feuds aside during communism, but they were never forgotten,' Koli, a young student is warned after he returns to his native mountain village to find himself part of a blood feud dating back 60 years in Albanian-born Artan Minarolli's Alive. In Slovakian-born Vladimir Balko's Soul at Peace, forty-something Tono returns from prison bitter and resentful but most importantly unable to adjust to the new world that has taken shape in his village since he was sentenced for a timber scam. Moreover, the Karlovy Vary this year marked the 20th anniversary of the collapse of Moscow-backed communism in the CEE by screening a special program of movies that depict the events which helped to redefine history during the last century. This includes the 1991 movie Sweet Emma, Dear Boebe from Hungary's Istvan Szabo about two former Russian language teachers struggling to qualify as English teachers following the end of communism so they can regain the social status they once enjoyed. Also included in the festival's 20 Years of Freedom lineup is Polish director Juliusz Machulski's How Much Does a Trojan Horse Weigh? which looks back on the 1980s through the eyes of a woman who transcends time to return to communist Poland. For filmmakers in the Balkans the breakup of the former Yugoslavia in the late 1980s unleashed pent up ethnic tensions which pitched the region into a series of bloody wars and that eventually also engulfed the region's cinema industry. 'We lost everything in the war. But it's coming back,' said Zagreb-based director Goran Rusinovic, whose psychological thriller Buick Rivera delves into the ethnic hatred of the 1990s and was screened at Karlovy Vary this year.