Fine Dead Girls

Running time: 77 mins

Iva and Maria, a young lesbian couple in Croatia's capital city, Zagreb, just want to find a quiet place to live together and be left alone. Unfortunately, the apartment building they choose, a half hidden place down by the train tracks, couldn't have been a worse choice. The place is like something from a Balkan David Lynch universe; the tenants - who at first glance seem nice and normal enough - are a crazy-quilt of eccentrics who cover just about every extreme of society's spectrum, and the landlady might have stepped from an Abel Ferrara fever dream. Everybody is seething about something on some level, and when the landlady's son inevitably falls for Iva, things really start to get out of hand. Filmed with a wonderfully sure hand and dark imagery, Fine Dead Girls swept the awards at Croatia's national film festival in Pula, winning awards for best film, director, producer, supporting actor and actress, as well as walking away with both the Critic's Prize and the Audience Award. It's a wonderful, dark thriller with a strong social conscience that embodies an appeal for understanding and tolerance. It's smoldering, brooding proof positive that film noir is alive and well in the Balkans. - Charlie Cockey