Beautifully photographed and uniquely atmospheric, Aleksei Popogrebsky’s new film How I Ended This Summer is the latest entry in an emerging Russian art house trend. Crafted in the traditions of such critically acclaimed works as The Return (2003), Kukushka (2002) and Popogrebsky’s own junior effort Roads to Koktebel (2003), this leisurely-paced offering envelops its audience in an eerily surrealistic world where characters are but fragile toys caught playing by the majestic forces of nature. Popogrebsky delivers a deceptively simple picture, slow-moving yet deliberately structured, which leaves a lasting impression.

Part of the nascent renaissance in Bulgarian cinema, exemplified most prominently by Stephan Komandarev’s Oscar contender The World Is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner (2008), Kamen Kalev’s new film Eastern Plays offers a much-needed fresh take on the modern Eastern European experience. In its subtle examination of the nature of nationalist and racist sentiment arising from post-Communist stagnation and threatening to pollute disoriented young minds, the film manages to go well beyond its localized context and will strike a chord with anyone who has ever found themselves in a dead end job or felt swayed by the opinions of others.

Raw, bold and frenetically charged, Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire’s French drama Johnny Mad Dog is a film about child soldiers fighting a civil war in an unnamed African country one would likely have high hopes for. Shockingly brutal even by Third World standards, and featuring a cast of unknown actors, the work appears to have all the makings of such modern genre classics as City of God (2002), Tropa de Elite (2007) and Jerusalema (2008). So it is surprising to see just how large a gap remains between the director’s no doubt noble intentions and his film’s actual delivery.