Doing the Continental

Godard was at his most politically personal and provocative in the 1970s, when Ilich Ramírez Sánchez was conducting his reign of terror across Europe and the Middle East. The career of the notorious `Jackal' is explored in exhaustive depth by Olivier Assayas in Carlos, which is being presented at LFF 2010 both as a single feature and a three-part epic. With Edgar Ramirez excelling as the Venezuelan who hit the headlines after taking hostages during an OPEC meeting in Vienna in 1975, this has all the journalistic gravitas of a documentary and the panache of a thriller as it switches from Carlos's bid to promote the Palestinian cause to his later years as a mercenary entrepreneur and fugitive.

Jean Renoir, one of the auteur heroes of the Cahiers du Cinéma critics who sought to transform the medium five decades ago, is represented in this year's Archive section with Boudu Saved From Drowning (1932). It's always been slightly surprising that Renoir's achievement hasn't been recognised in a major award, like the Jean Vigo Prize, which was recently awarded to Katell Quillévéré for Love Like Poison, a truthful and subtly comic rite of passage set in a small Breton village that follows 14 year-old Clara Augarde as she draws closer to choirboy Youen Leboulanger-Gourvil while coming to terms with grandfather Michel Galabru's failing health and devout mother Lio's growing infatuation with parish priest, Stefano Cassetti.

The folly of youth recurs in Isabelle Czajka's Living on Love Alone and Mikhael Herz's Memory Lane. The first centres on Anaïs Demoustier, as she discovers that her education counts for little in the harsh world of work and she allows herself to be seduced by wastrel Pio Marmaï in seeking the thrills that are entirely absent from her routine of office chores and one-night stands. By contrast with this bristling melodrama, Hers offers leisurely insights into the dynamics of a group of friends spending their last summer together in the outskirts of Paris. Marbled with melancholy, this slacker take on the Rohmerian ensemble piece turns around the small moments that shape the destinies of sisters concerned about their ailing father, the members of a mediocre pop group and a loner whose life is quietly unravelling.

First love also impinges upon Benoît Jacquot's Deep in the Woods, a fact-based saga that features impressive performances by Isild le Besco and Nahuel Perez Biscayart as the 19th-century doctor's daughter and her feral seducer, who run away together into the forest only for their relationship to come under scrutiny during a sensational court case. Replete with allusions to Wuthering Heights, as well as such features as François Truffaut's L'Enfant sauvage (1970) and Werner Herzog's The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974), this is a fascinating study of passion, superstition, class and psychological disturbance.

Jacquot's troubling tale is one of a trio of distinguished costume dramas in this year's slate. The other two are Bertrand Tavernier's The Princess of Montpensier and Catherine Breillat's The Sleeping Beauty. Working from a story by Madame de Lafayette, Tavernier returns to the 16th century to follow the fortunes of noblewoman Mélanie Thierry, who is forced to abandon swashbuckling cousin Gaspard Ulliel and marry Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet, who can further her father's ambitions at court. However, when war breaks out, Thierry is entrusted to tutor Lambert Wilson and soon finds herself learning all about political and sexual intrigue in the corridors and boudoirs of power. By contrast with this handsome revision of the historical melodrama, Breillat's melding of Charles Perrault's Sleeping Beauty and Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen has the look and feel of a Walerian Borowczyk period piece. But this deceptive simplicity allows Breillat mix archetype and anachronism, fantasy and realism in order to review the classic fables from a feminist perspective, as she pitches princess Carla Besaïnou into a waking dream that requires her to rescue new friend Kerian Mayan from the scheming Romane Portail.

Coming more up to date, Rachid Bouchareb follows up Days of Glory (2006), his epic study of North African soldiers in the Second World War, with Outside the Law, which examines the activities of the Algerian liberation front FLN in 1950s France. With Jamel Debbouze, Roschdy Zem and Sami Bouajila as the brothers drawn into the underground cause and Bernard Blancan as the cop out to use his covert Red Hand organisation to crush them, this is a hard-hitting thriller in the Costa-Gavras mould that has caused considerable indignation amongst right-wing politicians. And the Maghreb is also the setting for Xavier Beauvois's Of Gods and Men, a fact-based drama set in a Cistercian monastery in the 1990s that stars Lambert Wilson as the abbot forced to decide whether to continue with the order's mission or retreat in the face of increasingly hostile fundamentalism. Discussing clashing cultures and the place of religious vocation in an ever-more violent and intolerant world, this is a timely treatise on the meaning of faith and the difficulty of living up to belief.

Debating whether to follow one's conscience or one's heart is the also theme of Antony Cordier's Happy Few, which turns around jewellery designer Marina Foïs's decision to ditch boyfriend Roschdy Zem for website advisor Nicolas Duvauchelle. However, when Zem pairs off with Duvauchelle's ex, Elodie Bouchez, what started off as a civilised exchange of partners becomes much more complicated in this psychologically and sociologically astute - not to mention wittily erotic - study of sexual manners. Following through on a reckless scheme also proves problematic for teenagers Elise Lhomeau and Léa Tissier in Jean-Paul Civeyrac's Young Girls in Black, as they discover the difficulties of enacting the suicide pact they have contracted in honour of their hero, the German Romantic writer Kleist. However, even having fun is becoming increasingly difficult in these trying times, as a group of thirtysomething friends quickly realise in Guillaume Canet's Little White Lies, as they leave Jean Dujardin to recover from his road accident in hospital and head for the coast. But leaving one's troubles behind proves easier said than done for restaurateur François Cluzet, rebel Marion Cotillard, chiropractor Benoît Magimel, actor Gilles Lellouche and the lovesick Laurent Lafitte.

If Marion Cotillard is becoming a rarer sight in French pictures since her Oscar win, Kristin Scott Thomas is becoming an increasingly prominent presence. She delivers another fine performance in Lola Doillon's In Your Hands, as a doctor who is abducted by the vengeful Pio Marmaï and kept in isolation without any idea of why she is being held. Eventually, however, captive and gaoler strike up an awkward rapport that intensifies to the point where Scott Thomas still feels the need to see Marmaï again, even after she has escaped from her suburban prison. A hideaway proves equally significant in Romain Goupil's Hands Up, as Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi's children strive to prevent 10 year-old Chechen friend Linda Doudaeva from being deported. Juxtaposing scenes of idyllic summer revelry with the realities of French immigration policy, this is both a touching treatise on naive loyalty and a trenchant critique of the simmering ethnic tensions that have prompted a contentious response from President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Now the doyenne of French cinema, Isabelle Huppert remains as visible and prolific as ever and she plays very different characters in Jeanne Labrune's Special Treatment and Marc Fitoussi's Copacabana. In the first, she's an upmarket hooker who specialises in dressing up for her well-heeled clients. However, an encounter with Bouli Lanners - a psychoanalyst who has moved into the hotel where Huppert plies her trade while he strives to resolve a marital crisis - forces her to reassess her attitude to suppressing her personality on the whim of others. If this provides a droll insight into the actress's métier, the second offers an intriguing peak into family relations, as Huppert teams with her real-life daughter Lolita Chammah for the story of a free spirit who settles into a deadly dull timeshare job in Ostend to ensure that her only child has the wedding of her dreams. Whether trying to like Chammah's clean-cut salesman fiancé Joachim Lombard, seeking to impress boss Aure Atika by outdoing rival Chantal Banlier or finding unexpected romance with docker Jurgen Delnaet, this is Huppert at her most disarming.

Gérard Depardieu is on similarly lively form in Belgian iconoclasts Benoît Delépine and Gustave Kervern's Mammuth, a highly entertaining road movie that also offers some sly asides on the plight of the casual worker. Having just retired from the local abattoir, Depardieu discovers that he can't qualify for his pension unless he has payment slips from his previous employers. So, leaving wife Yolande Moreau to hold the fort, he heads off on his Mammuth motor bike to revisit some old haunts and reconnect with the spirit of old flame Isabelle Adjani and eccentric niece Miss Ming. Affectionate and anarchic, this may be a bit patchy, but it's also a moving meditation on the speed with which places change and not always for the better.

Basque directors Jon Garaño and José Mari Goenaga also challenge the notion that life (and cinema) is predominantly for the young in For 80 Days, which turns on an exceptional performance by Itziar Aizpuru as the 70 year-old wife of conservative farmer José Ramón Argoitia who rekindles her friendship with childhood confidante Mariasun Pagoaga after they meet while visiting comatose patients in a San Sebastían hospital. However, Pagoaga wants to do more than reminisce about old times and Aizpuru is highly tempted to throw caution to the winds. Reckless romance also jeopardises Emma Suárez and Eduard Fernández's marriage in Agustí Vila's The Mosquito Net, as she succumbs to a drunken fling with teenage son Marcos Franz's classmate, Àlex Batllori, while he pursues South American au pair Martina García. With sub-plots involving the unconventional parenting methods of Suárez's highly strung friend Anna Ycobalzeta and the effects of Alzheimer's on the relationship between Suárez's mother (Geraldine Chaplin) and father (Fermí Reixach), this snapshot of bourgeois dysfunction slips credibly between comedy, tragedy and the absurd.

Three more women on the verge dominate Juana Macías's Plans for Tomorrow. Goya Toledo has devoted herself to her career. But when she discovers she's pregnant, it's clear that she wants the child much more than partner Christophe Miraval. Model housewife Carme Elias similarly reaches a crossroads after her plans to return to work are derailed by an unexpected meeting with lost love Brendan Price, while bank teller Ana Labordeta risks losing her job and the respect of teenage daughter Aura Garrido if she gives abusive husband Jorge Bosch one last chance. If this solid, but soapy triptych is somewhat short on insight and invention, José María de Orbe's Father teasingly reveals its secrets, as it prowls a semi-derelict mansion outside San Sebastían to relive key moments in Basque history and recapture the atmosphere of the director's childhood home. Whether eavesdropping on a teacher telling her class about the ancient feud between the Oñacinos and Gamboinos clans or caretaker Luis Pescador's nostalgic chats with priest Mikel Goenaga, this is an audiovisually audacious blend of fact and fiction that makes evocative use of archive footage and ethereal stylisation.

Spain is the second biggest contributor to the European programme at LFF 2010 and much attention is bound to be paid to Alejandro González Iñárritu's Biutiful, which features an award-winning performance by Javier Bardem, as a devoted, but ailing father of two, who isn't above running rackets with illegal immigrants and communing with the dead to ensure that his kids are well provided for after his death. Presenting a little-seen side of Barcelona, this is a typically visually innovative, if more conventionally linear dissection of modern society.

The Catalan capital also provides the starting point for Félix Fernández de Castro's debut documentary, Maria and I, which draws on Miguel Gallardo's acclaimed comic strip to chronicle his relationship with his 14 year-old autistic daughter, Maria, who lives in the Canary Islands with her mother, May. Following the pair's holiday on Gran Canaria, this is a fond, sincere and often amusing odyssey that dispels many myths about a misunderstood condition, while also profiling the award-winning artist as an everyday dad. However, the summer proves far less enjoyable for 11 year-old Clàudia Pons, who receives a bracelet from father Hans Richter's jeweller friend Jordi Gràcia on condition that she stops crying in Jordi Cadena and Judith Colell's audacious adaptation of Lolita Bosch's novel, Elisa K. Fourteen years later, however, the full impact of this sordid transaction dawns on the now adult Aina Clotet and she confides her recollections to mother Lydia Zimmermann, as the tone shifts from the monochrome detachment of Cadena's flashback to the handheld colour edginess of Colell's contemporary denouement.

Content and form are held in equally daring equilibrium in Manoel de Oliveira's newly restored Rite of Spring (1963) and Raúl Ruiz's Mysteries of Lisbon. Slipping between the worlds of the New Testament, Francisco Vaz de Guimaräes's 16th-century Passion Play and everday Portuguese farmers, De Oliveira's account of an annual religious ritual being staged by the residents of a small mountain village contrasts starkly with Ruiz's sumptuous take on an 1854 novel by Camilo Castelo Branco, which sprawls to 270 minutes in order to accommodate the incidents in Portugal, France, Spain, Italy and Brazil that shape the destiny of the illegitimate son of countess Maria João Bastos, who was cast into a convent by brutal husband Albano Jerónímo on learning of his cuckolding. However, she manages to protect the child from a murder attempt and he grows into the dashing José Afonso Pimentel, whose passion for the beautiful Clotilde Hesme allows her to use him as a pawn in her game of revenge on Brazilian rake, Ricardo Pereira. With Léa Seydoux, Melvil Poupaud and Catarina Wallenstein in the supporting cast, this rivals Ruiz's Proust adaptation Time Regained (1999) in its scale, ambition and cinematic élan.

The contrast couldn't be much starker with Michelangelo Frammartino's Le Quattro Volte, a captivating minimalist dissertation that uses events in an isolated Calabrian village to prove the Pythagorean theorem of the indivisibility of animal, vegetable and mineral matter. Initially falling on a goatherd and his mischievous trip, the focus switches sequentially to a Stations of the Cross procession that passes his cottage and thence to a lost goat and a felled tree. Adopting a quasi-documentary approach that enables him to meld observation with imagination, Frammartino muses on faith, superstition, nature and tradition, while also capturing the essence of a tightly knit community and allowing the odd quadruped to steal a meticulously composed scene. The realist vein continues to provide rich pickings, as Daniele Luchetti proves with Our Life, a gritty depiction of working-class life that follows builder Elio Germano's ruinous bid to complete an apartment block in record time and the impact that his vainglory has on his family and friends. This Loachian study in arrogance finds echo in Sabina Guzzanti's documentary, Draquila - Italy Trembles, which employs news reports, archive material, contemporary interviews and ingenious animation sequences to assess the response of Silvio Berlusconi's government to the earthquake in L'Aquila in the summer of 2009. Exposing the cult of personality that the Prime Minister has constructed around himself, as well as the corruption and incompetence that hampered the relief of the disaster, this is satirical agit-prop at its most acute and cinematic.

The harsh realities of life are further exposed in Antonio Capuano's Dark Love, which considers the consequences on both victim and culprit of a brutal rape in contemporary Naples. Initially struggling to refocus on her education and her relationships with her family and boyfriend, Irene de Angelis begins reading the letters sent to her from prison by teenager Gabriele Agrio, who not only regrets his actions, but also finds himself on the receiving end of violent recriminations from his fellow inmates. Capuano's refusal to moralise or provide easy answers is mirrored by the debuting Massimo Coppola in Afraid of the Dark, which follows Alexandra Pirici from Bucharest to the northern Italian town of Melfi after she loses her factory job and comes looking for her mother, Antonella Attili. However, when she's not spying on Attili's activities with pimp Marcello Mazzarella, Pirici finds sanctuary with the family of angry Fiat worker Erica Fontana.

The travails of the working class are further examined in Pasquale Scimeca's Malavoglia, an updating of Giovanni Verga's 19th-century classic, The House by the Medlar Tree, which also provided the inspiration for Luchino Visconti's neo-realist masterpiece, La Terra trema (1948). Exploring the dual impact of declining traditions and imported cultures, this gruelling saga centres on fisherman Carmelo Vaccaro and the family that is left to fend for itself after he perishes on a people-trafficking expedition. With ageing padron Giuseppe Firullo struggling to understand grandson Antonio Curcia's attitude to domestic responsibility and granddaughter Elena Ghezzi falling for Arab newcomer Naceur Ben Hammouda, this is a sobering study of duty, debt and the indomitability of the Sicilian spirit.

Despite the odd dispute, the tone is considerably lighter in Ferzan Ozpetek's Loose Cannons, as the patriarch of a Lecce pasta factory summons sons Alessandro Preziosi and Riccardo Scamarcio to discuss the future of the business. However, a heart attack and Scamarcio's revelation that he's gay throw Ennio Fantastichini's plans into disarray. But, while wife Lunetta Savino tries to limit the scandalous fallout, Scamarcio finds himself becoming increasingly fond of workmate Nicole Grimaudo, while his sister Bianca Nappi seizes the opportunity to demonstrate her unsuspected talents.

Making a fresh start is also the subject of Stefano Pasetto's The Call, as air hostess Sandra Ceccarelli settles in Buenos Aires away from doctor husband César Bordón and falls for Francesca Inaudi, a tomboy who comes to Ceccarelli for piano lessons when not working in a poultry processing plant. The Sapphic element is also strong in GW Pabst's Pandora's Box (1929), the compelling and still shocking Louise Brooks vehicle that forms part of the Treasures from the Archive selection, while Jeanne Balibar essays another stewardess facing a crisis in Pia Marais's At Ellen's Age, which traces a thirtysomething's descent into drugs and self-discovery after she quits her job on learning that her part-time lover has got her best friend pregnant and throws herself into campaigning for animal rights.

Another pregnancy drives the events in Isabelle Stever's Blessed Events, as Annika Kuhl discovers she's expecting after an unprecedented one-night stand and is surprised to bump into the father when she visits the local hospital. .Doctor Stefan Rudolf is delighted by the news and suggests they become an item. However, playing house proves less straightforward than either had envisaged. Confined spaces also dictate the action in Philip Koch's Picco, a fact-based suicide drama that was filmed in a real prison to add authenticity to teenager Constantin von Jascheroff's struggle to determine whether he is a victim or a perpetrator after he is billeted in a cramped cell with pill popper Joel Basman, go-getter Martin Kiefer and bully Frederick Lau.

Being behind bars focuses bitter alcoholic Jacob Cedergren's mind in Thomas Vinterburg's adaptation of Jonas T. Bengtsson's powerful realist novel, Submarino, and he returns to his old neighbourhood determined to attempt a reconciliation with Peter Plaugborg, the junkie brother with whom he forged a tight childhood alliance against their mother's neglect. However, when not indulging in meaningless sex sessions with neighbour Patricia Schumann (whose drinking cost her custody of her kids), Cedergren ends up channelling more of his compassion into caring for Morten Rose, the unbalanced and overweight brother of a former girlfriend. Storms in domestic teacups also dominate fellow Dane Pernille Fischer Christensen's A Family, as dying master baker Jesper Christensen asks gallery curator daughter Lene Maria Christensen to turn down a lifetime opportunity in New York in order to ensure that his company retains its royal seal of approval. However, she has already aborted her baby with artist Johan Philip Asbæk to smoothe their Stateside transition and, as relations with her father become increasingly strained, she finds herself also having to cope with the insecurities of both siblings Line Kruse and Coco Hjardemaal and stepmother Anne Louise Hassing.

The Danish slate is completed by Mikkel Munch-Fals's Nothing's All Bad, Birger Larsen's Super Brother and Janus Metz's Armadillo. The first is a poignant exploration of loneliness and longing that follows four lost souls as they try to find some meaning in their lives. Newly retired Bodil Jørgensen opts for an unconventional one-night-stand; middle-aged Henrik Prip wrestles with a dark and socially unacceptable compulsion; Mille Lehfeldt struggles to come to terms with the psychological scarring left by her mastectomy; and Sebastian Jessen frets about his future being so wholly dependent upon his good looks. Ten year-old Lucas Odin Clorius is more concerned about what will happen to his autistic older brother Victor Kruse Palshøj in Birger Larsen's kidpic. However, he learns the perils of wishing without thinking when he uses a mysterious gadget to transform his space-obsessed sibling into the kind of role model he had always wanted.

The confusion and barbarism of combat are revealed in graphic detail in Janus Metz's contentious documentary, which charts the progress of some raw Danish recruits as they leave their families to take up their duties in a heavily fortified base shared with the British in Helmand Province. Covering similar territory to Restrepo, this is an unflinching look at the ennui and machismo of camp life. However, Metz is also careful to record the opinions of the locals caught in the crossfire between the Coalition of the Willing and the Taliban. The Soviets failed to subjugate Afghanistan in the 1980s and, in Pudana: Last of the Line, Anastasia Lapsui recalls the Kremlin's contemporaneous bid to break the spirit of the Nenets people of the Yamal Peninsula in north-western Siberia. Forced to change her name and abandon her native language in a Russian boarding school, Aleksandra Okotetto decides to make a bid for freedom. But, in order to return to a life of kayak fishing and tepee dwelling, she has to risk the icy wastes of the treacherous tundra.

Life after Communism hasn't exactly been all that it was cracked up to be, however, as Veiko Õunpuu suggests in The Temptation of St. Tony, a critique of capitalist Estonia that borrows from Buñuel and Pasolini, as well as Dante and Kafka, to plunge middle-aged middle manager Taavi Eelmaa into a nightmarish round of haphazard encounters whose bleak humour resounds similarly through Hans Petter Moland's A Somewhat Gentle Man, a Kaurismäkianly lugubrious comedy that stars Stellan Skarsgård as an ex-con returning to his Norwegian home after a 12-year stretch for murder, who would rather get to know his now-grown son Jan Gunnar Røise than follow boss Bjørn Floberg's suggestion that he whacks the snitch who sent him down. However, Røise has already told his pregnant girlfriend Julia Bache-Wiig that his father is dead.

Another father and son fail to see eye to eye in Finn Jalmari Helander's Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, which shares its reindeer theme with Swede Mauritz Stiller's Selma Lagerlöf adaptation, Gunnar Hedes Saga (1923), which is one of the many excellent archive treasures that seem to disappear after LFF when much more could be made of them in an annual touring programme of lost classics. Rare Exports, on the other hand, is set for a theatrical release later in the year and is bound to amuse festive audiences with its daring tale of a young boy (Onni Tommila) who not only discovers why the reindeer stocks in his Arctic home have been depleted, but also that the mining concern across the Russian border is not set on unearthing fossil fuels or precious stones, but on thawing out the long-frozen sinister Santa of Scandinavian legend.

Tommila succeeds in patching things up with father Jorma Tommila after they conquer the evil elves and establish a unique mail order business and Dutch teenager Samira Maas similarly hopes to build bridges with the stepmother who gave her up for adoption in Mijke de Jong's Joy. But, while she stalks Elisabeth Hesemans from a safe distance, Maas can't bring herself to make contact and her hesitancy begins to affect her relationships with Serbian boyfriend Dragan Bakema and pregnant galpal Coosje Smid, who still lives at the orphanage where Maas was raised (and seemingly abused). Dragan Bakema's unresolved issues with his mother impinge upon his relationship with wife Maria Kraakman in Sander Burger's Hunting & Sons, which chronicles the slow disintegration of a seemingly idyllic marriage after Kraakman discovers she's pregnant and develops a crippling case of body dysmorphia, Across the border in Belgium, Russian exile Anne Coesens finds herself locked up in an administrative holding centre in Olivier Masset-Depasse's Illegal. However, her 14 year-old son Alexandre Gontcharov is still at liberty and she fears being deported before she can ensure that he stays out of the clutches of the gangsters who sought to exploit her in this trenchant vérité drama that was inspired by a true story. Communication with the outside world is also limited in Alexei Popogrebsky's How I Ended This Summer, as Sergei Puskepalis and Grigory Dobrygin cope with the isolation of a manning a meteorological station on a remote island inside the Arctic Circle. But when bad news finally filters through from home, the inexperienced Dobrygin has to break it to his gruff comrade on his return from a fishing trip.

A death in the family proves equally central to Aleksei Fedorchenko's Silent Souls, an adaptation of Denis Osokin's short story, `The Buntings', which sees photographer Igor Sergeyev accompany paper factor manager Yuri Tsurilo on a trip to the former Finnish enclave where Tsurilo spent his honeymoon in order to bury his late wife. Trucker Ivan Dobronravov embarks on a journey into his past in Svetlana Proskurina's Truce, as he leaves the backwater where he lives with his uncle to return to the town where he was raised in the hope of finding a bride. However, he merely encounters old pals from his youth who all seem to have drifted into petty crime.

Another driver ventures into unpredictable territory in Ukrainian Sergei Loznitsa's My Joy. But Viktor Nemets's encounters with old soldier Vladimir Golovin and underage prostitute Olga Shuvalova are only the prelude to an attempted hijack that deflects the focus onto episodes occurring during the Great Patriotic War and the conflicted present that expose the arrogance and violence of men in uniform. With brutal incidents taking place in a remote village and a highway patrol point, this is a difficult watch that often feels as though Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness had been re-imagined by Franz Kafka.

Czech maestro Jan Švankmajer has produced some darkly enchanting fables in his day, but he's firmly in a surrealist mood in Surviving Life, in which portraits of Freud and Jung come to life in psychiatrist Daniela Bakerova's office and argue over the best course of action for Václav Helsus, a middle-aged office wonk who is married to Zuzanna Kronerova, but dreams about younger Klara Issova. Eventually, Helsus decides to take the plunge, but his intentions are thwarted by Issova's young son Jakub Frydrych, her ex-husband (also Helsus in a toupée) and Emilia Dosekova, an old crone who keeps turning his reveries into deeply disturbing nightmares. Poet Kryštof Hádek's hopes are dashed even more resoundingly in Tomáš Mašin's debut feature, 3 Seasons in Hell, which was based on poet and philosopher Egon Bondy's romance with the daughter of Franz Kafka's lover, Milena Jesenská. Opening in the postwar period of optimism following the defeat of Nazi Germany, the mood soon sours as Stalinism takes root and Hádek and fellow free-thinker Karolina Gruszka are trapped in Prague after their bid to escape to Paris misfires with tragic consequences.

Romania's Communist heyday is recalled by Andrei Ujica in the epic documentary The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu, which finds striking companions in Portrait of the Fighter As a Young Man, Constantin Popescu's equally ambitious memoir of the anti-Soviet resistance movement, and Cristi Puiu's Aurora, a harrowing study of divorce that stars the director in a sobering snapshot of disaffection that finds echo in Ágnes Kocsis's Adrienn Pál, which sees Hungarian nurse Éva Gábor go in search of a long-lost friend after realising that she has more in common with someone she hasn't seen in decades than husband István Znamenák, who is now more preoccupied with his hobbies than her.

Finally, there are a couple of half-term treats on offer for younger viewers. Vadim Sokolovsky's The Book of Masters is the first Russian production for Walt Disney Pictures and it follows a young stone-cutter as he debates whether to rescue the princess who has captured his heart or succumb to the terrible power of the Stone Queen, who needs to sacrifice an innocent in order to control the entire world. Less spectacular, but equally entertaining, Andrzej Maleszka's modern-day Polish fairy-tale, The Magic Tree, accompanies siblings Filip Fabis, Maja Tomawska and Adam Szczególa in a race against time to prevent musician parents Agnieszka Grochowska and Andrzej Chyra from setting sail on a cruise ship and leaving them in the care of martinet aunt, Hanna Sleszynska. However, their task is both eased and exacerbated by the red chair whose magical powers have transformed their aunt back into a girl (Joanna Zietarska) and attracted the attention of malevolent circus barker Maciej Wierzbicki.