In collaboration with Eastern Neighbours Film Festival, De Balie presents special screenings emerging from the festival’s Between Film and Art section – across two Saturdays, four works of acclaimed experimental cinema from and in relation to broader Eastern Europe.
Today: Unstable Rocks and Rudzienko, two films shaped by patient attention and tender politics – followed by a conversation with Ewelina Rosińska and Sharon Lockhart, moderated by the curator Temra Pavlović.
Unstable Rocks, Ewelina Rosińska, with Nuno Barroso
25 min, 2024, Dutch premiere
Geology, animals and the human path flow into this subjective portrait of Portuguese landscapes. Between 2018 and 2023, the filmmaker came across different regions and places in this country, either alone or with a group of artists and eco-activists.
On the fringes of these groups’ work and activities, themes such as nature conservation, ethnography, agriculture or actions against gentrification emerge.
The film’s rhythm is determined by the legendary 16-mm Bolex camera, but it is slower and contemplative, aligning with the contemporary idea of slowing down.
Rudzienko, Sharon Lockhart
53 min, 2016, Dutch premiere
Rudzienko was shot over three years in collaboration with the residents of the Youth Center for Sociotherapy in Rudzienko, Poland. Building on the relationship she established in 2009 with Milena, a young Polish girl who Lockhart befriended during the production of her film Podwórka and who later moved to the center, Lockhart conceived of a series of workshops to empower the young women.
The group worked together to develop dialog and movements to be enacted on-camera based on their collective activities. The resulting film features a range of conversations, from the philosophical to everyday teenage concerns, and depicts actions both theatrical and mundane that voice the girls’ rich humanity.
The Polish-language film proposes an innovative approach to the relationship between image and language by offsetting the spoken conversations with their written translations, creating a space of quiet reflection.
About ENFF: Between Film and Art
Eastern Neighbours Film Festival (ENFF) brings today’s outstanding cinema from broader Eastern Europe to audiences in the Netherlands in a vibrant festival setting. Running since 2006, each November over five days in The Hague and throughout the year with On Tour screenings in major Dutch cities The 18th edition takes place November 4–8, 2026 at Filmhuis Den Haag.
Between Film and Art is the festival’s section for experimental and artist-driven film: works whose material and conceptual forces question our relationship to the world and the act of watching itself. The programme appears annually at the festival and travels through nomadic screenings, curated by Temra Pavlović.
Speakers
In collaboration with Eastern Neighbours Film Festival, De Balie presents two days of special screenings emerging from the festival’s Between Film and Art section.
The documentary Soil and Wings follows Ayten and Erduan, who raise their family in the North-Macedonian village of Kanatlar.
After recovering from tuberculosis Mariam has a recurring nightmare about being kept high up in the mountains, in the middle of the forest in an old palace where outcasts live.
