Delve into the wide world of Eastern European film with the Klassiki Podcast. Featuring interviews, roundtable discussions, recorded essays, and more, we take y...
“The godfather of American avant-garde cinema“, Jonas Mekas left his native Lithuania in 1944, and a few years later moved to New York. His friendships and collaborations with the likes of Andy Warhol, Allen Ginsberg, and Yoko Ono helped to consolidate the downtown art scene, and his impressionistic “diary films”, compiled from footage of his life that he obsessively shot on his handheld Bolex camera, have proved hugely influential on experimental film ever since.
Mekas never lost sight of his native Lithuania, returning to themes of dislocation and home throughout his career. His work speaks to the cinema traditions of the Baltic region more broadly. His attachment to Lithuanian national culture produced controversy at the end of his life when questions were raised about his work under Nazi occupation in the 1940s.
To untangle the question of Mekas, Lithuania, and the avant-garde, host Sam Goff speaks with Josh Polanski, a critic who specialises in cinema from the Baltic states. You can find Josh’s writing on Baltic film here, and explore our collection of films from the region here. Sign up for a free 7-day trial at klassiki.online.
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45:56
Under the Grey Sky: inside the crisis in Belarus
In 2020, Belarus was rocked by mass protests following fraudulent presidential elections that returned autocratic leader Aleksandr Lukashenko to power. The new feature film from Belarusian-Polish director Mara Tamkovich, Under the Grey Sky, is based on the true story of a journalist, Kateryna Andreevna, who was arrested and charged with treason for broadcasting police brutality against protestors. Under the Grey Sky is screening across the UK now as part of this year’s Kinoteka Polish Film Festival.
This week on the show, host Sam Goff sits down with Mara to discuss the real life events behind her film, and to try and shed light on the situation in Belarus – a country in the grip of a brutal regime, and one that remains party to the war in Ukraine, but which is too often absent from conversations about the region.
You can find information about screenings of Under the Grey Sky at this year’s Kinoteka Film Festival, both in London and on tour throughout the UK, on the festival site. Sign up for a free 7-day trial at klassiki.online.
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43:05
The long, strange trips of Wojciech Jerzy Has
2025 is the centenary year of Wojciech Jerzy Has – one of Poland’s greatest and most misunderstood filmmakers. A full retrospective of Has’s films is currently underway across the UK: from his surrealist masterpieces The Saragossa Manuscript and The Hourglass Sanatorium, to his never-before-screened shorts. To set the scene for this retrospective, host Sam Goff speaks with its curator, Polish film expert Michael Brooke, about Has’s peculiar place in Polish film history, his unique approach to literary adaptations, and the dreamworlds he conjured onscreen.
You can find information about all the Has screenings at this year’s Kinoteka Film Festival, both in London and on tour throughout the UK, on the festival site. Sign up for a free 7-day trial at klassiki.online.
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41:55
Ester Krumbachová: the ghost of the Czech New Wave
Artist, guru, witch, muse. The cinematic polymath Ester Krumbachová was an essential figure behind many of the classics of the Czech New Wave. But Krumbachová herself remains an elusive figure, marginalised in histories of female filmmaking.
In recent years, this has begun to change. Krumbachová’s sole directorial effort, the romantic parody Murdering the Devil, has been restored and screened worldwide. It’s coming to the UK this month, with three screenings as part of this year’s Borderlines Film Festival, in Hereford, Ludlow, and Malvern, and Klassiki subscribers can watch the restoration on the site now. Host Sam Goff sat down with writer and curator Rachel Pronger to discuss Krumbachová’s role in the Czech New Wave, her fall from grace, and what her work can teach us about feminist filmmaking today.
Get your tickets for the Borderlines Film Festival screenings of Murdering the Devil. Sign up for a free 7-day trial at klassiki.online.
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37:03
The war-haunted world of Larisa Shepitko
In this episode, we’re dipping back in to the archive of writing on the Klassiki Journal for an essay on the Soviet-Ukrainian director Larisa Shepitko, written and read by host Sam Goff. One of the most significant female filmmakers to emerge from the Soviet system, Shepitko’s career was cut short at the age of just 41 when she was killed in a car crash while location scouting for her fifth feature. Her surviving work reflects her experiences as a child of war and dislocation and remains vital to our understanding of the post-Soviet world.
Read the original piece here and make sure to explore our collection of classic Soviet titles. Sign up for a free 7-day trial at klassiki.online.
Delve into the wide world of Eastern European film with the Klassiki Podcast. Featuring interviews, roundtable discussions, recorded essays, and more, we take you beyond the headlines to explore the past, present, and future of this fascinating region. Sign up to Klassiki today to gain access to our ever-evolving library of classic and contemporary titles, as well as filmmaker interviews, video essays and introductions, programme notes, and much more.
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