Films & Cinema, JFBB, Varenyky and a PostOst Fest

please answer to my e-mail? <3

May 04, 2025

Hello,

I’m coming up on almost three years of writing this Substack — and I still love doing it. But I’ll be honest: it can feel like a lonely journey sometimes.

What really helps is community. I’ve been lucky to meet two fellow writers here in Warsaw recently, Elliott and Monika, and I’d love to connect with more. Do you happen to know of any other Warsaw-based Substacks?

And if not — but you still want to remind me I’m not entirely alone over here — feel free to reply to my email’s. Whatever you want to say or share, truly, any message will make my day, I promise! <3

Films To Watch
X3 Spaces — Creative Fest
JFBB — Jewish Filmfestival Berlin Brandenburg
Film Series on 80 Years After the End of WWII: The Hours of Hope
Monday Kitchen
Opportunities & Useful Things

Films To Watch:

*Chłopi Film (watch it, it’s beautiful!!!)*

COMING OUT — the one & only DEFA Film (GDR cinema) that tells a queer love story. Set on New Year’s Eve in 1989, it follows Philipp, a young teacher torn between societal expectations and his own suppressed desire. When he falls in love with Matthias, an old school friend reawakens feelings he can no longer deny.

This film premiered literally when the Wall fell! Double historic!

📆 14th May📍ACUD 💵 9€, 🗣️ German

CHŁOPI — brings Władysław Reymont's Nobel Prize-winning novel to life through hand-painted animation. Set in a 19th-century Polish village, it follows Jagna, a young woman coerced into marrying a wealthy widower, despite her love for his son. As village gossip and patriarchal pressures mount, Jagna's fight for autonomy unfolds across the changing seasons.

📆 8th of May📍HU Slawistik 💵 - €, 🗣️Polish with English subtitles

IRENAS GEHEIMNIS — Poland, 1939: A young Polish woman hides twelve Jews in the cellar of a Nazi officer’s home — at the risk of her own life. Based on a true story.

📆 11th of May📍Babylon 💵 9€, 🗣️ Polish with English subtitles

GIRLS’ STORIES — Jagoda and Zuzia are best friends, fully online, and almost teenagers. Over months, the doc follows their shifting friendship and self-image between school, social media, and the quiet chaos of puberty.

📆 7th of May📍fsk Kino 💵 8/10€, 🗣️ Polish with English subtitles

X3 Spaces — Creative Fest

x3spaces

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The first-ever PostOst Creative Fest brings together over 15 acts — artists, journalists, musicians, and filmmakers — all celebrating and challenging narratives from Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. Workshops, political cooking, performances, panels, and even Tarot: the program is more than promising, uniting diverse perspectives and people from the CEE and Central Asian communities in Germany.

Brought to you by the X3 Collective (you might know their podcast), this transdisciplinary event is supported by Member of the Bundestag Natalie Pawlik (How to say Schirmherrschaft in English???).

Aaaand, we can contribute: There’s an open call for creative contributions and they’re also looking for volunteers!

📆 May 16th, 3PM — 11PM

📍Berlin Global Village / Neukölln

💵 for free

🗣️ German

JFBB — Jewish Filmfestival Berlin Brandenburg

Six days of bold and diverse cinema (orrrrr “jewcy films”): From comedies to arthouse, the JFBB brings the latest international films exploring Jewish life, identity, and culture around the globe. For a first item with an industry section: JFBBpro also offers a dedicated program for professionals in the national and international film industry. Three films that immediately caught my attention:

SECRET — A lakeside house, a buried truth: queer intimacy, family silence, and Poland’s unspoken postwar past.

BLUM: MASTERS OF THEIR OWN IDENTITY — How Emerik Blum built Energoinvest — Žbanić traces a Shoah survivor’s socialist vision from Sarajevo to global industry

UNSERE KINDER — GDR doc on how antisemitism and far right fit into a socialist state

Find the full program here!

📆 May 6th - 11th

📍Filmkunst 66, Moviemento, Bundesplatz-Kino und Kino Krokodil + Potsdam cinemas

💵 8/10€

🗣️ Original with English and German subtitles

Film Series on 80 Years After the End of WWII

Three evenings, three films, three perspectives on the end of the war in Europe — from bunkers in Berlin to a field hospital in West Poland. This screening series explores the fragmented experience of 1945.

THE HOURS OF HOPE — A quiet Polish town, May 1945: as liberation is celebrated, one last SS unit hides in the woods. A neorealist gem about the messy first hours of peace.

📆 May 8th, 7:30 PM

📍Kino in der Königstadt

💵 8/10€

🗣️ Polish with English subtitles

Also part of the screening series: Bunker – die letzten Tage & The Search on 6th and 7th of May.

MONDAY KITCHEN

monday_kitchen_ua

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Monday Kitchen is back — a Berlin-based initiative spotlighting Ukrainian culture through food, music, art and community.

The next meeting is on Monday, 5th of May, you can expect Borscht and
Varenyky!

Important: The project is meant to provide a safe space for Ukrainian community in Berlin, to share and to feel safe. Please keep that in mind when joining <3

📆 May 5th, 7 - 23 PM

📍here

Opportunities & Useful Things

The feedback for this section was positive, so I will give it a try for 5 more issues to see how it resonates! Let me know, what you think!

Kulturzug is back! A train between Berlin and Wrocław, with a cultural program on board. The season started and you can find the schedule and program here.
If you are a creative trying to get an overview over funding opportunities, aiming to professionalize your work or look into self-employment — Kreativkultur is the perfect place to get advice and orientation. I booked a consultation session with them and it was super helpful and 100% free. Also possible in English!
Call for Film Submissions for KinoBerlino screening on May 29th
Call for Music Video Submissions for Emilys Event, my amazing friend <3
Two new Substacks worth reading: East European Flicks (maybe you know them from IG, now also here!) on East European Cinema as well as Russia Watch Germany on Russian hybrid warfare and disinformation in Germany.