A cin­e­mat­ic road trip that’s not to be missed

Film fes­ti­vals are too often spaces that pro­vide audi­ences the oppor­tu­ni­ty to gorge on ran­dom movies and leave it at that. It’s an expe­ri­ence that is atom­ised and it can be alien­at­ing – free from con­text or a broad­er the­mat­ic dri­ve. The Calvert Jour­nal Film Fes­ti­val has been curat­ed in a man­ner that offers audi­ences a wind­ing route through its cheer­ful­ly eclec­tic pro­gramme rather than just a series of indi­vid­ual des­ti­na­tions with no real route home.

Imag­ine, if you will, hop­ping into your trusty rental car, and tak­ing a road trip across a giant swathe of the globe, but with­out leav­ing your post­code. We have a full tank of petrol and our first stop is the most west­er­ly: Croa­t­ia. Ease your­self in with Ivan­ja Bosnak and Thomas Johnson’s short ani­ma­tion Imbued Life, about a curi­ous young taxi­der­mist and the strange rela­tion she devel­ops with her ani­mal sub­jects. There’s also Igor Bezi­novic and Ivana Pipal’s Micro­cas­sette, which takes place on the Croa­t­ian island of Zoki, and sees a man head on a jour­ney of self dis­cov­ery upon hap­pen­ing across a ran­dom and intrigu­ing treasure.

It’s back in the car and head­ing due north to the Czech Repub­lic just in time to see Daria Kascheeva’s Daugh­ter, in which the poet­ic ran­dom­ness of nature offers respite to an elder­ly woman in her hos­pi­tal bed. Due north­east this time to see Cit­i­zens of Nowhere, a UK/​Poland co-pro­duc­tion by Zuzan­na Rabikows­ka in which the acrid lega­cy of Brex­it is revealed through the filmmaker’s own cin­e­mat­ic self-por­trait which doc­u­ments the abuse she suf­fered as a Pol­ish nation­al liv­ing in the UK.

We reach our north­ern­most point next when tak­ing a lit­tle diver­sion through Lithua­nia in order to view Nova Litu­a­nia by Karo­lis Kaupi­nis, a fea­ture length polit­i­cal com­e­dy set dur­ing the zenith of Hitler’s death­ly expan­sion across Europe. It pon­ders the intrigu­ing notion of what nation­al­i­ty means and its rela­tion­ship to geog­ra­phy, as a cel­e­brat­ed aca­d­e­m­ic sug­gests ready­ing an ​“New Lithua­nia” as a way for inhab­i­tants to con­tin­ue their exis­tence in a place they feel com­fort­able call­ing home.

Pull a giant U‑turn, kick the car into top gear and head south to Ukraine to catch Les Deux by Lada Kopy­to­va – one high­light of the inno­v­a­tive Stu­dent Film strand – in which the direc­tor pieces togeth­er archive frag­ments to explore a bur­geon­ing roman­tic rela­tion­ship in a rur­al Ukrain­ian out­post. After that we’d need to take a small diver­sion east through Moldo­va to see Vlad Bolgarin’s ani­mat­ed short Sigh, a com­ic inves­ti­ga­tion into urban ennui as told through a man who can’t stop sighing.

Cross­ing back through Ukraine and then head­ing fur­ther east we’d skirt into Rus­sia for The Moon, an audio­vi­su­al col­lage based on a clas­sic folk­tale from film­mak­er Yu Man­ka. We’re com­ing close to mak­ing our way into Asia, but that’s not before a brief lay­over in Geor­gia where we watch State of Emer­gency by Mari­am Natroshvili and Detu Jintcharadze, a thought­ful rumi­na­tion on the time and being which adopts the ​“pause-play-pause” gram­mar of mod­ern com­put­er games.

As we keep head­ing south, we’re afford­ed the rare oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­sume new work from Tajik­istan, with Anisa Sabiri’s Rhythms of Lost Time a medi­um-length film which plays as part of the festival’s Spe­cial Screen­ing strand. And just before cross­ing the Caspi­an Sea by fer­ry to our final des­ti­na­tion, we’ll take in 2 Angels by Ramazi Bara­nov while in Azer­bai­jan, a strange tale con­cern­ing the wan­der­ings of a deaf care­tak­er in a sculptor’s stu­dio in St Petersburg.

And now we’ve made it to Kaza­khstan we can pow­er down and return our car to the rental shop, but not before watch­ing Asel Kadyrkhanova’s All the Dreams We Dream, a gor­geous hand-drawn ani­ma­tion about strug­gles of life in 1930s Kaza­khstan. The Calvert Jour­nal Film Fes­ti­val offers remote access to all these movies, and you can check for tim­ings and avail­abil­i­ty through their web­site. Then you can decide whether you want to make the jour­ney all the way back again.

The Calvert Jour­nal Film Fes­ti­val runs 18 – 31 Octo­ber. For more infor­ma­tion head to calvertjour​nal​.com/​f​i​l​m​f​e​s​tival