Foreign Films on DVD

Between war and peace, humor and hate, capture and surrender, life and death lies No Man's Land. Set in the unforgiving trenches of the Bosnian-Serb conflict, this "astonishing" (Chicago Tribune) film follows the story of three soldiers caught between two fighting lines. Hailed as "one of the best films of 2001,"* No Man's Land is a "powerful, harrowing, shockingly entertaining" (Movieline) exploration of the absurdity of war. Fleeing enemy fire, an injuredBosnian soldier named Čiki retreats to a trench, where he finds himself trapped with a woundedcomrade and worse a Serbian! With no way to escape and with his fellow soldier lying on a spring-loaded bomb set to explode if he moves, Čiki realizes he must do the unthinkabletrust his enemyIf he wants to survive. *Associated Press, Chicago Tribune, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Hollywood Reporter, New York Daily News, New York Post.

Reza left Belgrade more than 25 years ago to seek a new life in Zurich. Now in her fifties, she has completely detached herself from the past. She owns a cafeteria and maintains an orderly, joyless existence. Mila, a waitress there, is a good-humored Croatian woman who also emigrated decades ago, but, unlike Reza, she dreams of returning to a house on the Croatian coast. Both of them receive a jolt when Ana, a young, itinerant woman who has fled Sarajevo, breezes into the cafeteria looking for work. Reza hires her but is annoyed by Ana's impulsive and spirited efforts to inject life into the cafeteria. Gradually the acrimony will dissipate, as Ana, who hides a tragic secret under her passionate spirit, begins to thaw Reza's chill, and their relationship will change both women in ways they never anticipated.

There’s never been another filmmaker quite like Dusan Makavejev. Even in the 1960s, when all of cinema’s steadfast rules seemed to be breaking down and artists such as Godard, Cassavetes, and Marker were dissolving the boundaries between fiction and documentary, Yugoslavia’s Makavejev stood alone. His films about political and sexual liberation were revolutionary, raucous, and ribald. Across these, his wild, college-like first three films, Makavejev investigates—with a tonic mix of earnestness and whimsy—love, death, and work; the legacy of war and the absurdity of daily life in a Communist state; criminology and hypnosis; strudels and strongmen.

Eclipse Series 18 Includes:

Man is Not a Bird (Covek nije tica)<br />A copper-factory town in the mountains serves as the unexpected site for a strange brew of sex, hypnosis, and Beethoven in Makavejev's dizzying debut.
<br />Love Affair, or the Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator (Ljubavni slucaj ili tragedija sluzbenice P.T.T.)<br />The romance between a young telephonist and a rat exterminator lays the groundwork for a tragic, funny, and modern look at relationships in sixties Belgrade.<br />
Innocence Unprotected (Nevinost bez zastite)
In this documentary-fiction hybrid, one of Yugoslavia's most infamous (and ridiculous) lost films becomes the canvas on which Makavejev colorfully paints a violent national history and an absurd biography of a real-life escape artist and acrobat.

Split, Croatia, 1992. In a small village near the front-line, three drunken Croatian soldiers plan to take revenge on a Serb by targeting his house. The man turns out to be at home and gets shot. But there is a witness: his eleven-year-old daughter... Director Bre an tells the story from different perspectives, with the web of tangled relationships and dependencies among the villagers only becoming clear towards the end.

It is 1995 post war Croatia and handsome, lonely Labud misses his girlfriend Vida, when the lovers were separated during the Balkins war. He hopes to reunite with her, but knows the chances are such that they never will. After a series of disasterous dates, from a computer dating service, he finally meets and falls in love with the beautiful Romana. This lovely and funny romantic film shows refugees trying to eke out a normal life against the strange and scary landscape of a post-war country.

Studio: Strand Releasing Release Date: 06/12/2007

Studio: Wolfe Video Release Date: 07/29/2008 Run time: 86 minutes

This "perceptive film combines nostalgia and political commentary" (Leonard Maltin) into a captivating portrayal of five teenagers growing up against the ominous backdrop of social turbulence of 1950s Yugoslavia. A spirited and moving celebration of youth and the unconditional loyalty that often comes with it, Hey Babu Riba comes "alive with the energies of an unsettling period and the unsettled young" (The New York Times)! Pop, Glenn, Sacha and Kicha are four vivacious and impetuous teenage boys coming of age in Belgrade, 1953. All four are mad about Glenn Miller, the sport of rowing, American blue jeans and Marianatheir comely, ethereal rowing captain. But when the boys decide to risk everything to help their beloved Esther, it drastically and ironically changes the course of their lives forever!

A cleverly structured storyline involving the nosy, yet personally guarded tenants in an apartment building in Zagreb. Two university students move in and unknowingly act as the catalyst that peels away layers of secrecy and mistrust. A mother's fixation on her son, and his insecurity and lust, drive this fast-paced and well-directed feature. Matanic evokes vivid echoes of the imapact of Croatia's recent economic and social upheaval, and adds an unusual twist to a traditional narrative.