74th Golden Globe Awards

Who shot Lauri, a well-liked teacher with no known enemies in his local community? As he now lays comatose at home, his mother Elsa (Tiina Maelberg, a respected stage and TV actress making her film debut) acts as a devoted caregiver with infinite patience and resilience. A middle aged woman visibly stuck in a loveless marriage, the permanent quiet tension on her face only occasionally betrays hidden depths of lifelong frustration, unhappiness and resentment.

“As a filmmaker raised in Nagorno-Karabakh I have listened to stories of hardships endured by my family and villagers, and of their struggles into dealing with such a devastating inter-ethnic conflict. ” So says Jivan Avetisyan, a prolific 35 year-old Armenian director with a solid documentary background, who was born in this mountainous landlocked separatist region in the Southwestern tip of Armenia bordering with Azerbaijan and totaling a mere 4400 square km.

Greeks have always had a turbulent history; but from the time of gods and heroes, they have also counted on the power of Eros in order to overcome their trials, to fight and to free themselves. Christopher Papakaliatis’ second feature, Worlds Apart, taps into that fact.

The famous Russian and international theater director Kirill Serebrennikov who also regularly forays into directing films, is no stranger to the Golden Globes. His film Playing the Victim (2006), a contemporary Russian take on Shakespeare’s Hamlet ,was in competition for the best film in the Foreign Language category.

Russian President Vladimir Putin called the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe”. One can dispute this notion but what is indisputable is that on a personal level a lot of people who lived in the former Soviet republics suffered a lot of depravity when they suddenly became independent countries in August of 1991 and their lives radically changed,One of these countries was Armenia.

Roberto Sneider has only directed 3 films over the span of 23 years. Dos crímenes, his first film, won several awards around the world, including the Ariel for Best Debut, and the India Catalina in the Cartagena Film Festival for Best Actor to Damian Alcazar and Best Supporting Actress for Margarita Isabel.

A comedic study of male foibles, Chevalier,  is a film made by a woman for women. Consistent with the absurdist vein of New Greek Cinema, Chevalier isolates a group of middle-aged men on a yacht somewhere in the Aegean Sea.

In 2012 the Iranian director Asghar Farhadi was awarded a Golden Globe for his film A Separation. With this universally acclaimed film Farhadi who started his career in the late 1990’s established himself as a major filmmaker coming out of Iran.

From the moment it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in the Directors Fortnight, this film was an instant sensation. Shortly after the debut, it was acquired for domestic release in the US and France, and was the talk of the town.

One has to admit that for many Americans the only film from and about Kazakhstan did not even come from that country. It was the satire Borat:Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.