Here are the two previous posts: Part 1, Part 2
The rule here is that as of this writing, the movie can’t have more than one thousand votes on IMDb. The problem is that it seems IMDb is losing the cinephile crowd, so many movies might remain under this number even though they might be widely seen within specific audiences. Still, I need some rule, so I’ll go with that.
This time I left out Finnish movies. This is just based on feels, because to me these movies are not obscure, even though they might be for the rest of the world.
Anyhow, here’s a list.
God Hates Shavon (2023) (I think this was previously known as Irish Catholic)
I don’t even know if this ever got a release outside of YouTube, but you can find it there for free: link
This is a weird dark comedy made on a shoestring budget and the movie does not try to hide that in any way. What I like about this is that it feels very personal. You sometimes hear from ex-Catholics about the guilt you carry from that upbringing and it seems to be ubiquitous here.
Kyz ala kachuu or Bride Kidnapping (2023)
This is a movie from Kyrgyzstan. (I got that right on the first try based on the Firefox spellchecker.) It is kind of clumsy, in a way. Feels like they didn’t necessarily know what they were doing with their movie. Yet, it is effective. The name of the movie tells you all, but before we get there, they make sure we sympathize with the main character. Also, this is more of a PSA in a movie form than anything else, so there is no happy ending here. Just a nightmare that apparently many women in the country live in.
As I was researching for this (meaning going through my IMDb ratings), upon seeing that name, I thought to myself, “what the fuck is this?” It is weird that a movie by Chantal Akerman can be this obscure, but here we are.
This isn’t really a narrative movie. There are narratives going on if you pay attention. I would find this horribly problematic, if Akerman wasn’t Jewish, because this is just a series of Jewish immigrants in New York complaining about things. We can’t ask her anymore, but there is a feeling that she is doing this with love.
To nie mój film or It’s Not My Film (2024)
Polish is very hard for me to decipher in general, but in this particular case, you can guess what it means pretty easily.
So, Wanda and Jan are a married couple whose relationship is not doing well. To fix this, they decide to go for a hike together. This is something Jan does regularly, but Wanda is not very keen. Still, they decide to do this together and most of the movie is just us following their trek across a frozen coastline. A trek that never seems to end.
I like Wanda as a character very much. Jan is more of a blank slate. Still, this works quite nicely.
The Sudbury Devil (2023)
I have mentioned this movie on this blog on multiple occasions in the past. It was made by the guy behind Atun-Shei Films on YouTube (historical channel which explains history from a very leftist point of view). If I remember correctly, this is based on stories from his birthplace. It’s a very interesting witch story which is much closer to the witch stories from real life than witch stories of movies. And I for one love this.
Asatte no mori or The Warped Forest (2011)
This has an earlier sister movie called Naisu no mori: The First Contact which has found about ten times the audience. Considering this has less than 300 votes on IMDb, that ten times still isn’t that much.
This is mostly just a series of very weird vignettes. It does go somewhere, but I don’t think that is very important. Often the fun is that weirdness is just met with disinterest. I mean, in general having shopkeeper who is so gigantic that she can’t really fit into the shop she is supposed to be taking care of would be weird, but here it’s just one of those things.
Must Auk or Black Hole (2025)
Okay, taking out Finnish movies and adding a movie from a country with only a quarter of the population might be a bit weird, but here we are.
This is an Estonian anthology movie. We have three stories of trying to survive in Estonia in the 90s after they gained their independence. There is a sci-fi tint to all of this. Quite a strong one, actually.
Wî â Ritoru Zonbîzu or We Are Little Zombies (2019)
Some orphaned kids choose to live on their on rather than with foster parents They are all clearly very traumatized and unable to handle their feelings, so they see themselves as zombies and thus form a band called Little Zombies which has some success.
Vi (2019)
A Nigerian professional footballer in Vietnam gets fired. Since he doesn’t really have a way to return home, he moves in with four middle-aged women. Most of the movie is just about their daily lives and how cozy they become with each other. If you are worried about subtitles, there isn’t much, because there really isn’t that much dialogue.
Pepe: Estudios de la Imaginación – Parte I (2024)
This is a true international cooperation. The countries or origin are Dominican Republic, France, Namibia and Germany. Of course, many movies have ties to many countries, but only the ones with significant participation are included on the main page.
So, this is about Pepe, the only hippo ever killed in Americas. The story is all over the place, but you don’t mind. That’s a feature, not a bug. For example, there’s a local beauty contest at one point and when the participants are asked about how they would make the world a better place, they talk about getting better access to clean water or a school in their village.