Bolshe Vita

This first feature is a mellow high of a trip through that fleeting moment after the overthrow of the Soviet empire, 'when Eastern Europe was happy,' flush with optimism and self-determination, before darker forces again asserted their control. From the Bolshe Vita - a bohemian club in Budapest and point of convergence, like the city itself, for pilgrims and wayfarers from all directions - the film follows a diverse and divergent troupe of characters through a tender, melancholic, unsentimental and very funny celebration of this evanescent period of openness and freedom. Rough around the edges, but if it seems rambling and uneventful, that's because writer/director Fekete understands that life's memorable moments aren't about what you did so much as who you were with.