Visegrad Four films to feature at Istanbul Modern

ISTANBUL

Istanbul Modern Cinema, in collaboration with the Visegrad Four (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia), presided by Poland, will present a program of films from the Visegrad countries from Oct. 22 to Nov. 1.

The films deal with different periods and stories that explore aspects of the four countries with common geography and culture, including their shared history from the Holocaust to communism, the dreams and disappointments they have carried from past to present, and the socio-realistic complexities of today’s societies.

Among the films will be “Mug,” which looks at the dark side of modern Poland with a tone that mixes realism, fantasy and comedy while telling the tragic story of a man who undergoes a face transplant after having an accident during the construction of the tallest statue of Christ in the city of Świebodzin.

The other film from Poland is a masterpiece of European art cinema by Krzysztof Kieślowski, “The Double Life of Veronique.” The film is about kindred spirits, mysticism, and longing charts showing the parallel lives of Veronique and Weronika, two women who lead separate lives in France and Poland.

“In Jupiter’s Moon” is about a Syrian refugee who gets shot while trying to escape through a forest and miraculously obtains the superpower to defy gravity and levitate.

The program also features “Kolya” by Czech director Jan Sverak, which won the Golden Globe and Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. The film shows the period of 1989 during the Velvet Revolution, which put an end to the communist regime in what was then Czechoslovakia.