Finnish filmmaker Juha Wuolijoki’s feature debut is a delightful holiday film, suitable for children and families, which relates the story of how Santa Claus (also known as St. Nicholas) became Santa Claus. "The story begins hundreds of years ago in a remote corner of snowy Lapland, when a little boy loses his family in an accident. The villagers decide to look after the orphaned boy together.  Once a year — at Christmas — Nikolas moves to a new home. To show his gratitude, Nikolas decides to make toys for the children of the families as good-bye presents. Over the years, Nikolas’s former adoptive families become many, and soon almost every house has presents on its doorstep on Christmas morning. Eventually, this gift-giving broadens and Nikolas comes up with a solution that brings all the children all over the world presents every Christmas morning" (Cineuropa). Director Wuolijoki has said that he and screenwriter Marko Leino drew inspiration from the classic children’s tales of Sweden’s Astrid Lindgren.  Christmas Story was the top-grossing Finnish film of 2007, and won Finland’s Oscar for Best Cinematography. Colour, 35mm, dubbed in English. 83 mins.

All Ages Welcome! Admission for minors (under 18) is $8.00 – no membership required.  Regular admission/membership requirements in effect for adults.

This tragicomic third feature by Czech director Jiří Vejdělek (Holiday Makers, Roming) was a major hit upon its domestic release late last year, and was inspired by actual events during then-President Václav Havel’s prison amnesty program in the early 1990s. Talented actor Ivan Trojan (star of Wrong Side Up, the Czech entry in our 2006 EUFF) is titular Václav, a middle aged, mildly autistic man living with his aging mother (Emília Vásáryová) in a rural hamlet. A bundle of nervous energy, Václav is given to mischievous pranks that border on the dangerous, and prone to ghostly visits from his late father (Martin Pechlát), who died mysteriously back in 1978. The locals consider Václav the town fool; his exasperated brother Frantisek (Jan Budar) wants to have him committed.  When the two siblings become romantic rivals for Lida (Sona Norisová), things take a tragic turn. Trojan and Budar won Czech Lions (the Czech Oscars) for their standout performances.  "An unorthodox yet involving rural drama...Anchored by a risk-taking, precisely calibrated performance from Trojan...Trojan’s stock-in-trade is playing men of authority gripped by deep-rooted eccentricities, and his fascinating, commanding Václav never approaches excess or caricature" (Eddie Cockrell, Variety). Colour, 35mm, in Czech with English subtitles. 100 mins.

Tagged as "a magic drama on the grounds of cruel reality," Martin Repka’s Return of the Storks was Slovakia’s official Foreign-Language Film submission to the most recent (80th) Academy Awards. Vanda (Katharina Lorenz) is a young flight attendant who feels a constant urge to flee. Fired from her airline job in Frankfurt, she impulsively jettisons her boyfriend (Florian Stetter) as well, and runs off to a remote, pastoral village in east Slovakia, near the Ukrainian border, where she settles in with her grandmother. Vanda is obviously in search of something, but she’s not exactly clear what. What she finds is something else again, as she comes under the dubious sway of Miro (Lukás Latinák), a gravedigger and human smuggler. Colour, 35mm, in Slovak, German, and Russian with English subtitles. 96 mins.