We are delighted to announce that the ninth edition of the ArteKino Festival will take place throughout the entire month of December, from the very first day of the month until the very last day of the year. This gives you plenty of time to enjoy the 12 films carefully selected exclusively for you. This is the sixth year that DMovies has teamed up with ArteKino in order to promote and bring to you 12 dirty gems of European cinema (up from 10 films in some of the previous years).

The online Festival is aimed at cinephiles from all over Europe who are seeking original, innovative, thought-provoking, and downright filthy European productions. You can watch films on ArteKino’s dedicated website. Subtitles are available in various different languages.

ArteKino is once again supported by the Creative Europe Media Programme of the European Union. Below is a list of the 2024 selection, listed alphabetically. You can also read the 12 film reviews and exclusive interviews (the latter are coming up throughout the month) by clicking here.

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1. Agathe, Solange and Me (Louise Narboni, 2023):

In this ode to meory and loss, Actress Agathe embarks on a journey in order to uncover the full story of the life of her grandmother, Solange. Digging through artworks, writing, and old family archives, Agathe and her filmmaker friend Louise learn about a fascinating past, and reflect on the passage of time in their own lives.

Agathe, Solange and Me captures the experience of discovering who your family are. Made with sincerity and heart, it will prompt you to look into your own personal history to see what new chapters open.

Click here in order to read our exclusive review, and here in order to accede directly to ArteKino film viewing.

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2. Amanda (Carolina Cavalli, 2022):

Carolina Cavalli’s charmingly idiosyncratic Italian comedy opens on a poolside image of privilege. Only, it’s not adults lounging in and around the pool, but two young girls – Amanda and her sister, Marina. The one lounges on the poolside, while the other is in the pool snacking. The quirky vibe that lies beneath the surface reveals the strong personality of Cavalli’s creative vision that will be unleashed.

This debut feature is deceptive in that every scene feels effortless, and yet, with a critical eye, we can see the attention to detail in how the cinematography, performances and dialogue all communicate the film’s specific tone and intent. The director’s willingness and ability to create this illusion, singles out her first film as quietly impressive.

Amanda is also pictured at the top of this article. Click here in order to read our exclusive review, and here in order to accede directly to ArteKino film viewing.

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3. Black Stone (Spiros Jakovides, 2024):

Bureaucracy, xenophobia, and motherly love are the ingredients for comedy in this award-winner from Greece. Eleni Kokkidou stars as Haroula, a 68-year-old woman desperately worried about her son, civil servant Panos (Achilleas Chariskos). He’s been missing for two days, with his office simply piling paper work at his empty desk and refusing to answer his phone. A camera crew turns up at her doorstep wanting to ask questions about Panos, and Haroula cheerily believes this is a news crew hoping to bring attention to the disappearance. In reality, Panos is accused of fraud and the crew are making a documentary about his whereabouts. As they follow the trail, wild twists begin to appear.

A smart movie cleverly told; Black Stone delivers an onslaught of comedy before ably switching gears into something more meaningful. Through making you laugh, director Spiros Jacovides invites you to think.

Click here in order to read our exclusive review, and here in order to accede directly to ArteKino film viewing.

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4. County Lines (Henry Blake, 2020):

County Line is a term used to describe is the diabolical practice of heroin and crack dealers coercing at-risk teens into muling their Mephistophelian wares to rural villages, extending their grim tendrils outwards from the urban seats of power. It is a phenomenon that has emerged from obscurity a few short years ago and grown to infamy, commanding headlines in recent months with countless police busts and agonising testimonials from those youths bullied, bribed or otherwise persuaded into these illicit machinations.

With such dark subject matter, it is clear from the off that this grim portrayal of the very real grooming of wayward British children as drug mules is not going to make for lighthearted viewing.

Click here in order to read our exclusive review, and here in order to accede directly to ArteKino film viewing.

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5. Do You Love Me? (Tonya Noyabrova, 2023):

Conceived prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Do You Love Me? couldn’t be more timely. Partly based on the experiences of writer-director Tonya Noyabrova, the drama is set in Ukraine in 1990, toward the end of the Soviet Union.

The story focuses on Kira (Karyna Khymchuk), a confident teenager who dreams of being an actress. Living with her affluent parents, the tensions of the outside world don’t seem to touch her existence filled with pop music and Americana. Suddenly, her world is turned upside down when it emerges that her father has a lover, something her mother is aware of and ignores. Her innocent view of the world crumbles alongside the prosperity of her nation as she runs from place to place seeking stability and love.

Click here in order to read our exclusive review, and here in order to accede directly to ArteKino film viewing.

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6. Inland (Fridtjof Ryder, 2024):

British horror folk about a young man released from a psychiatric institution blends hyperrealism with surreal symbolism. As the title suggests, Inland is strongly tied to the land. The film takes the form of a modern folk tale, bordering on folk horror, while the presence of the forest looms large in both the scenes and the characters’ minds. As the Man washes the dishes, for example, the leaves reflected in the window cover his face in a way that is evocative of Green Man imagery.

Fans of folk horror might enjoy Inland for its eerie vibes and plentiful references to fairytale creatures, but its slow pace ultimately offers little to the average movie-goer, and its forays into surrealism may prove too surface-level for the arthouse aficionado.

Click here in order to read our exclusive review, and here in order to accede directly to ArteKino film viewing.

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7. Medium (Christina Loakeimidi, 2023):

Medium is a gentle film that instead of dramatising its character’s day-to-day life, appreciates a quiet observational style. Cinema frequently tries to accelerate the pace of life, its experiences and rites of passage, replacing the monotony with drama. In Loakeimidi’s hands, the essence of everyday life is kept intact as much as possible, allowing us to feel the monotony, the slow and undulating path our emotional experiences take us. That’s not to say there’s a lack of drama, because Loakeimidi fills Eleftheria’s world with energy – from her encounter with Anna (Martha Fritzila), a medium, to her sister’s friend who runs a hotel and rents rooms for a few hours to desperate lovers.

This is a quietly impressive film and perhaps one of its final revelations is how in the hands of a director, time becomes like putty, that can be moulded and manipulated. In the end, Loakeimidi is playing with the idea that a film is closer to a memory or a daydream, from which we must awaken.

Click here in order to read our exclusive review, and here in order to accede directly to ArteKino film viewing.

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8. Nuclear Nomads (Kilian Armando Friedrich and Tizian Stromp Zargari, 2023):

Two German filmmakers quietly register the insalubrious lives of power plant inspectors in France, in this gently disturbing documentary. They follow a small group of workers as they carry on with daily duties, which involve mostly driving around the facilities and occasionally cleaning them. We never see them in extreme proximity of the power plants, perhaps because the directors wished to avoid too much exposure themselves. The outcome is an eerily quiet, non-narrative film. It is the sensory experience that prevails. We never learn the names and the backgrounds of the workers, perhaps in an attempt to remind viewers that these people are profoundly dehumanised by their occupation.

The film is dedicated to the people who devote their lives to power plants “so that the rest of us can have electricity”, falling short of making any explicit political statements. It doesn’t need to. The disturbing imagery does the dirty job.

Click here in order to read our exclusive review, and here in order to accede directly to ArteKino film viewing.

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9. Pink Moon (Floor van der Meulen, 2021):

Iris is startled to find out her father wants to end his life on a particular day in the near future, in this suicidal tragicomedy from the Netherlands. Pink Moon centres on a family, and their responses to a father’s desire to end his life on good terms.

There are announcements, and then there’s a proclamation of a parent who wishes to end their life. And so it is for Iris (Julia Akkermans) who meets her father and brother for dinner only to discover that her parent doesn’t want to carry on. “75 is a beautiful age,” he says, “but I don’t want to be 76”. Her reaction is human: denial, disbelief and bewilderment. Pink Moon’s treatise concerns assisted suicide, a current topic of discussion felt all across the world.

Click here in order to read our exclusive review, and here in order to accede directly to ArteKino film viewing.

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10. Prince (Lisa Bierwirth, 2021):

In her debut feature, German filmmaker Lisa Bierwirth takes an unflinching look at the complicated implications of love between a white German Woman and a Congolese immigrant. While Joseph spends his days trying to find investors for a diamond mine back in his home country, all while doing shady side deals to keep the money flowing, Monika is part of the culture scene of Frankfurt. As an art curator for the Frankfurter Kunsthalle, she might not make big money but is moving around the art bubble with prestige.

Bierwirth eventually offers a resolution for the seemingly insurmountable differences, a way for this relationship to work. Despite the micro-aggressions and the strict social norms, the director remains quietly optimistic. Maybe love always wins indeed.

Click here in order to read our exclusive review, and here in order to accede directly to ArteKino film viewing.

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11. Somewhere Over the Chemtrails (Adam Rybansky, 2022):

Senior firefighter Broňa (Miroslav Krobot) explains, when asked why he has a problem with foreigners: “It’s not prejudice. It’s experience”. His experience with people from abroad, however, is very limited. He lives in a small town in the Czech Republic’s hilly backcountry. The only person in the close periphery with skin and hair one tone darker is Roma Gejza (Milan Kroka), and he happens to be a local. Nonetheless, Broňa insists: no foreigners, because they are trouble.

Somewhere Over the Chemtrails investigates the repercussions of propaganda and paranoia on individuals and also on a small community as a whole. The movie is inspired by Jaromír Balda, a Czech terrorist, who had wanted to stir up hatred against migrants with two attacks on railways, and forged letters of confession.

Click here in order to read our exclusive review, and here in order to accede directly to ArteKino film viewing.

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12. The Worst Man in London (Rodrigo Areias, 2024):

In this sylised, quasi-fictionalised account of Charles Augustus Howell, director Rodrigo Areias opens on a London in the midst of great cultural change. It’s the 19th century, and art is taking a more honest stance, capturing the horrors imposed by societal norms.Luminaries Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Lizzie Siddal and John Ruskin are the talk of the town, and these occasions happen in clandestine gatherings – nominally shot in one continuous take – meant to discuss the transformation of Europe.

It’s in this England that Howell (played with sinister self-assurance by Albano Jerónimo) appears to bring organised chaos to the proceedings. He acts as a middle-man, issuing missives, warnings and thinly veiled threats to competitors, acting to the best of his ability to achieve what needs to be done. Around him comes a collection of kaleidoscopic colours, suggesting that this is a country progressing into the next century; one based on conviction and creativity.

Click here in order to read our exclusive review, and here in order to accede directly to ArteKino film viewing.