An online Euro­pean film fes­ti­val is offer­ing 10 films to watch at home for free

It’s been a fun­ny old year for film fes­ti­vals, which has seen Cannes can­celled for the first time in 50 years and Toron­to and New York piv­ot to total­ly online ver­sions. An indus­try dom­i­nat­ed by excit­ing show­cas­es in exot­ic locales has had to total­ly rethink its iden­ti­ty – and as the pan­dem­ic con­tin­ues, who knows what the future looks like. Will we be back on the Croisette next sum­mer? Will celebri­ties con­tin­ue to cruise down the canals of Venice in speed­boats in Sep­tem­ber 2021? Who knows? But those kind­ly folks at ArteKino – Europe’s pre­mière online film fes­ti­val – are back this Decem­ber with anoth­er edi­tion of their pio­neer­ing pro­gramme, which brings a selec­tion of Euro­pean gems to audi­ences across the con­ti­nent, and all for free.

While plen­ty of fes­ti­vals have had to switch to stream­ing this year to deliv­er their pro­gramme, ArteKino are no strangers to the online game. The fes­ti­val is now in its fifth year, bring­ing 10 films in 10 dif­fer­ent lan­guages to 45 coun­tries across Europe from the 1^st until the 31^st of Decem­ber. Per­fect tim­ing for those long win­ter nights – and a good excuse to stay indoors.

ArteKino is the result of a col­lab­o­ra­tion between ARTE and Fes­ti­val Scope, seek­ing to cre­ate a new kind of film fes­ti­val which cel­e­brates the artistry behind Euro­pean cin­e­ma, and high­light the syn­er­gy between coun­tries with­in the con­ti­nent. As Brex­it looms ever clos­er for those in Great Britain, it’s a wel­come reminder that pol­i­tics can’t tru­ly sep­a­rate us from our friends across the chan­nel, and a chance to dis­cov­er some excel­lent films that oth­er­wise might have slipped through the net. And that’s not all; as always, view­ers get to turn jurors, vot­ing for their favourite film to win the ArteKino Audi­ence Award.

So, what’s on offer? Here are the 10 films you can stream from the com­fort of your own home over the com­ing month…

Mina Mil­e­va and Vesela Kazakova’s doc­u­men­tary-fic­tion hybrid tells the sto­ry of Iri­na, a Bul­gar­i­an woman liv­ing on a run-down estate in South­east Lon­don. When a cat becomes stuck ​‘in the wall’ of their com­mu­nal lift, res­i­dents must work togeth­er to res­cue it in this quirky fea­ture that is a co-pro­duc­tion between Bul­gar­ia, France and the UK.

Ivana (played by director/​writer Ivana Mlade­n­ović) is a Ser­bian actress work­ing in Roma­nia, but fol­low­ing some health prob­lems, decides to spend sum­mer back in her home­town with her fam­i­ly. Her roman­tic entan­gle­ment with a younger man becomes the hot top­ic of con­ver­sa­tion among the towns­folk – test­ing the lim­its of Ivana’s men­tal health.

Dur­ing the 2004 Athens Olympics, 11-year-old Misha arrives in Greece from Rus­sia to live with his moth­er. He’s shocked to dis­cov­er there is a father there wait­ing for him too – and while Greece cel­e­brates the return of one of its most famous cul­tur­al insti­tu­tions, Misha is forced to grow up quick­ly, flung into the adult world.

In Chiara Campara’s Ital­ian dra­ma, Yuri is a 30-year-old man with no roman­tic expe­ri­ence. Yearn­ing to no longer live in soli­tude, he opts to move away from the small moun­tain vil­lage where he lives with his father – to the sub­urbs of a near­by city in search of his destiny.

Fol­low­ing the fall of the USSR, 12-year-old Kovas trav­els with his moth­er to her home­land for the first time since she fled Lithua­nia 20 years pri­or. They return to claim her fam­i­ly estate, but dis­cov­er an impov­er­ished Russ­ian fam­i­ly occu­py­ing it, and are forced to recon­sid­er their dreams of reclaim­ing her home.

François Valen­za inves­ti­gates the life of one of France’s most beloved musi­cians: Sébastien Tel­li­er. From his ear­ly career to becom­ing one of the most inven­tive pop stars in the world, this doc­u­men­tary delves into who Tel­li­er is and what makes him tick as an artist and a man.

Set in the harsh world of a juve­nile deten­tion cen­tre, Nick has tak­en the fall for his brother’s actions, gain­ing him respect among the oth­er inmates. He attempts to sow dis­cord among them, but recon­sid­ers his actions and moti­va­tions when rug­by train­ing ses­sions start, in Uta Beria’s Geor­gian film which played in com­pe­ti­tion at the Rome Film Fes­ti­val last year.

The win­ner of the Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al Film Prize at Berli­nale 2018, Karim Aïnouz’s film tells the sto­ry of Berlin’s icon­ic Tem­pel­hof Air­port – defunct since 2008, it has since become a large recre­ation­al space, and in 2015, an emer­gency refugee camp. Among those anx­ious­ly wait­ing to find out if they will gain res­i­den­cy or be deport­ed are 18-year-old Syr­i­an stu­dent Ibrahim and Iraq phys­io­ther­a­pist Qutai­ba, in this film that high­lights the very real asy­lum cri­sis ongo­ing in Europe.

A pick from Rot­ter­dam and Toron­to Film Fes­ti­vals, David Verbeek’s Croatian/​Dutch dra­ma tells of a man who acci­den­tal­ly bombed a school through a remote­ly oper­at­ed drone. Strug­gling with the impli­ca­tions of this inci­dent, he starts to feel dis­con­nect­ed from every­thing else in his life.

A dis­con­cert­ing Swiss film by Klau­dia Reyn­icke, Sec­on­da is a 32-year-old woman who suf­fers from ago­ra­pho­bia. Her life is upend­ed when her moth­er dies unex­pect­ed­ly and her father aban­dons her – left com­plete­ly alone and unable to leave her home, her only link to the world beyond her door is a small girl, who attacks her from the outside.

Find out more about ArteKino and reg­is­ter your inter­est through their web­site, https://​www​.artekinofes​ti​val​.com/.