Neighbouring Cinema Festival Film Programme at Jam Factory Art Center 🎬
This August and early September, join us for a series of free partner screenings presented as part of the international Neighbouring Cinema Festival, in partnership with Jam Factory Art Center.
The Neighbouring Cinema Festival showcases contemporary cinema from Central and Eastern Europe, introduces audiences to emerging directorial voices, and creates a space for dialogue between cultures through film.
The second event in the programme is Kontinental ’25.
Kontinental ’25 takes its name from a luxurious new hotel planned for the site of an abandoned building. The only remaining resident is a homeless man living in its basement. When authorities attempt to evict him, he tragically takes his own life. For the court bailiff who witnesses the suicide, the incident becomes a profound moral challenge. Struggling with overwhelming guilt, she seeks comfort from her family, friends, a priest, and even strangers—only to uncover the deep fractures running through contemporary Romanian society.
Why watch it?
The latest film by acclaimed Romanian director and provocateur Radu Jude, Kontinental ’25 is a sharp social satire exploring humanity, complicity, and the systems that evade responsibility.
The film exposes some of the deepest fault lines in contemporary Europe: rising nationalism fuelled by economic insecurity, gentrification, hostility toward migrants, and various forms of social exclusion.
Jude also weaves the war in Ukraine into this broader portrait of present-day Europe. Remarkably, the film was shot on an iPhone 15 in just 10 days with a minimal budget—its stripped-back aesthetic only reinforces its honesty and urgency.
