Calvert Shorts: Best of the Fest

Taking in stop-motion animation, collage, verité, archive and everything in between, journey across Eastern Europe with this cherry-picked selection of wildly creative short documentaries.

Road to Paris / Dir. Daniel Delikatnyi / Ukraine, UK / 2020 / 16 mins. A team of Ukrainian ballroom enthusiasts peep through the Iron Curtain in pursuit of success at the French World Open. Unaware of the challenges ahead, this comic coming-of-age story is peppered with wit, conquest and Soviet nostalgia.

Citizens of Nowhere / Dir Zuzanna Rabikowska / UK, Poland / 2019 / 7 mins. Citizens of Nowhere delves into the experience of citizenship, nationality, and identity. The film is a personal response to the Brexit referendum and the increased xenophobia that followed, created by Zuzanna Rabikowska — a Polish filmmaker who moved to the UK as a child with her mother and sister in 2001.

Outsiders / Dir. Almantas Petkunas / Lithuania / 2019 / 17 mins Kestutis and his friend Arni both spend their days on the basketball court. Kestutis is in a gang dealing drugs, while Arni struggles to live at home with his alcoholic father. Both are trying to escape their own realities — until they meet Wyte, the father of Lithuanian streetball.

The Vibrant Village / Dir. Weronika Jurkiewicz / Hungary / 2019 / 7 mins In a quiet Hungarian village, men gather to swill beer at the bar. Meanwhile, the women are busy at work, mass producing sexual satisfaction.

Microcassette / Dir. Igor Bezinovic, Ivana Pipal / Croatia / 2020 / 19 mins. Among the garbage heaps of a landfill site perched on a Croatian island, Zoki uncovers a microcassette. A close study of the discarded object becomes a tribute to chance — and imagination. We’ve cherry picked this free online programme from the collection of films playing at this year’s Calvert Journal Film Festival.