Second Run

The first director to be shortlisted for both the Grierson and Jarman Awards, the work of filmmaker, artist and cultural activist Andrea Luka Zimmerman presents tender portraits of community and...

Vaclav Vorlicek's 1973 reworking of the classic Cinderella is one of the most beloved films in all Central European cinema. Delightful and unconventional, Three Wishes for Cinderella places the...

In 2016, four reels of Derevensky Detektiv ('The Village Detective'), a 1969 Russian film starring the Soviet-era character actor Mikhail Zharov, were found in a fisherman's net off the Icelandic...

The British artist and filmmaker Ben Rivers is internationally renowned for creating a body of bold experimental docufictions that search for an escape from modern society. Rivers shoots in various...

Set in Prague, this powerful tale is informed as much by Czech resistance to Soviet impositions as it is by the torments of the Nazi era. A Jewish former doctor is compelled to work cataloguing the...

Set in Prague, this powerful tale is informed as much by Czech resistance to Soviet impositions as it is by the torments of the Nazi era. A Jewish former doctor is compelled to work cataloguing the...

The arrival of a travelling circus sends ripples through the inhabitants of a remote Keralan village. Aravindan Govindan's poetic and allegorical film The Circus Tent explores the often-marginalised...

A seasoned detective investigates a series of child murders, succumbing to an all-consuming and tragic obsession with the case, finding empty solace in his quest for vengeance. What emerges is not a...

Triple bill of Polish war dramas directed by Andrzej Wajda. In 'A Generation' (1955) a young man (Tadeusz Lomnicki) decides to fight against the Nazis after falling for a pretty Resistance leader...

Made in 1965, this Czechoslovak film is set in the German-occupied, 'independent' Slovak state during World War II. A carpenter is appointed 'Aryan Controller' of a button shop owned by an old Jewish...

Made in 1965, this Czechoslovak film is set in the German-occupied, 'independent' Slovak state during World War II. A carpenter is appointed 'Aryan Controller' of a button shop owned by an old Jewish...

Jaroslava Schallerová stars in this Czech fantasy horror based on the novel by Vitezslav Nezval. 13-year-old Valerie (Schallerová) is on the cusp of adolescence as she indulges in Gothic daydreams...

1970s Czech sci-fi comedy directed by Jindrich Polák. Following the death of his identical twin brother, rocket designer Karel (Petr Kostka) is caught up in a plot involving a group of former Nazis...

Martin Sulík directs this Slovakian coming-of-age drama about a young man trying to find his path in life. The cast includes Maria Pakulnis, György Cserhalmi, Gejza Benkö and Iva Bittová.

Vitalina Varela stars as a fictionalised version of herself in this Portuguese drama from film-maker Pedro Costa. The story follows on from Costa's 'Horse Money' (2015) in which Vitalina told how she...

Czechoslovakian drama directed by Stefan Uher. The film follows the mysterious Anabella (Jolanta Umecka) as she inspires a group of young artists. The cast also includes Ladislav Mrkvicka, Otakar...

Czechoslovakian drama co-written and directed by Otakar Vávra. Set in 17th century Moravia, an old woman is accused of witchcraft after being caught stealing the bread passed out at communion...

Andrzej Wajda writes and directs this Polish period drama starring Daniel Olbrychski, Wojciech Pszoniak and Andrzej Seweryn. The film follows Max (Seweryn), Moritz (Pszoniak) and Karol (Olbrychski),...

Romanian-language drama in which a married man with a child finds himself compelled to choose between his wife and his lover in the lead up to Christmas. Paul Hanganu (Mimi Branescu) has been with...

Pia Marais' semi-autobiographical debut feature recounts the adolescence of Stevie (Ceci Schmitz-Chuh), a resourceful 14-year-old girl who finds methods of her own to cope with the unstable...

A stark, cold and powerful film from Hungarian director, Miklos Jancso. The setting is the desolate countryside some time after Kossuth's 1848 rebellion against the oppressive Habsburg Austrian...

Foreign drama set in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution. In the brutal civil war, Hungarian volunteers supported the 'Red' revolutionaries who were being hunted by the 'White' Government forces...

Karel Zeman co-writes and directs this fantasy adventure starring Milos Kopecky as eccentric adventurer Baron Munchausen. After coming across young astronaut Tonik (Rudolf Jelínek) on the moon, the...

Karel Zeman co-writes and directs this fantasy adventure starring Milos Kopecky as eccentric adventurer Baron Munchausen. After coming across young astronaut Tonik (Rudolf Jelínek) on the moon, the...

Catalan historical drama co-written and directed by Lluís Miñarro. The film follows ruler Amadeo I (Alex Brendemühl) as he attempts to establish himself as the King of Spain in the early 1870s...

Low-budget Romanian drama co-written and directed by Cristi Puiu. Struggling entrepreneur Ovidiu (Alexandru Papadopol) is approached by a local crime lord with a job offer. Tempted by the prospect of...

Historical drama directed by Albert Serra. As his life comes to an end, Giacomo Casanova (Vicenç Altaió) travels to the mountains of Carpathia to seek out young peasant girls with whom he can...

Oldrich Lipsky's one-of-a-kind Czech black comedy employs an ingenious twist - telling the life story of a philanderer and condemned murderer entirely in reverse: from his 'birth' at the guillotine,...

Second Run presents a selection of essential works by Polish filmmaker and iconoclast Jerzy Skolimowski, one of international cinema's most prolific and celebrated filmmakers. This special edition...

A manifesto for a new generation of young filmmakers, Pearls of the Deep is one of the delights of the Czechoslovak New Wave. Based on stories by Bohumil Hrabal, the film is a compendium of five...

Based on true events, and reflecting the Stalinist terror of the early 1950s, Ryszard Bugajski's harrowing film was banned under martial law in Poland, but survived and thrived on underground VHS...

Sentiment is Tomás Hejtmánek's intimate documentary portrait of the great Czech director Frantisek Vlácil. The film was inspired by encounters with the filmmaker and told through taped interviews,...