Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival: Guardians of the Formula and Fez Summer '55

The Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PӦFF) runs in-person in Tallinn, Estonia from November 3-19. The Boston Hassle’s Joshua Polanski will be reviewing and interviewing live from Estonia as part of his multi-outlet coverage of the festival. Be sure to check out his website for updates on additional coverage.

GUARDIANS OF THE FORMULA (2023) — dir. Dragan Bjelogrlić

Hot off the heels of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, Serbian actor-director Dragan Bjelogrlić made the superior 2023 film about the fragility of humanity in the face of nuclear weapons. Guardians of the Formula (or Guardians of the Formula: Chain Reactionas the intertitles call it) tells the true story of 1958 reactor incident at the Vinča Nuclear Institute just outside of Belgrade and, interestingly enough, the invention and application of bone marrow transplants by the French oncology professor Georges Mathé. The “Balkan Oppenheimer” is both an exceptional medical procedural and nuclear film, likely making it one of a kind in this respect.

The doctor, or “professor” as he constantly corrects, is here played in a brilliant and cutting performance by Alexis Manenti, who looks a bit like a more pensive Jim Parsons. After the accident, four Serbian physicians irradiated, led by their professor Dragoslav Popović (Radivoje Bukvić), fly to the Curie Institute in Paris for treatment by Mathé, perhaps the only person in the world who can save their lives. He’s only ever tried the experimental transplant on mice and neither the “recipient” nor “donor” of the small rodents ever survived the treatments. Struggling to recruit donors, the hospital staff, a car mechanic, and others gamble with their own lives. In another apt comparison to Nolan, Bjelogrlić conservatively reveals information about the events of October 15, 1958 as the physicists near death with flashback match edits throughout the film’s runtime—thereby making one dramatic through-line from two timelines.

Continue reading at the Boston Hassle.

FEZ SUMMER ‘55 (2023) — dir. Abdelhaï Laraki

Set on the eve of Moroccan independence from their French occupiers, Abdelhaï Laraki’s Fez Summer ‘55 is the most timely film of the festival: a pressing story of an Arabic-speaking people’s resistance to violent occupation.

Oumaïma Barid captivates as Aïcha, the beautiful neighbor next door to the 11-year-old Kamal. Her eyes pull the camera closer, instantly placing the viewer on the correct side of the struggle. She grows to love her neighbor as the somewhat annoying little brother that he is. His love (and appreciation of her beauty), though, proves strong enough to transform him into a resistance fighter at his young age. There is no ideological backing or agitprop motivating Fez Summer ‘55. It’s a story of simple good guys and bad guys. Of course, in military occupations there are good guys and bad guys and it is that simple.

Continue reading at the Boston Hassle.