MUMBAI: The first Eastern Neighbours film festival is scheduled from 6-9 November at Utrecht in the Netherlands. The film festival, with the aim to promote the films and culture of Eastern European countries, will showcase over 30 films.

The festival will have movies, short films, documentries and short-films from 14 different countries.

As per the film festival’s artistic director Rada Šešic, the intention if this festival is to showcase the region’s cinema, which is “modern in cinematic style and appealing for the world audience” while at the same time having kept its unique “Eastern European black humour” and “Eastern European sense of storytelling”; to allow the Dutch to get acquainted with its neighbours some of which have already joined the EU (Bulgaria and Romania) and some of which will in the future; and to broaden the Dutch audience’s “knowledge and mind about Muslims and their culture” through films from Balkan countries that have significant Muslim population, such as Bosnia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Albania, and Kosovo.

The films will be from Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Turkey, Russia, Moldova and Belorussia. Some of the films to be screened are: Shadows, Upside Down, Magic Eye, Corridor#8, Das Fräulein and Plastic Jesus.