Minotaur

Based on a novel by Judita Šalgo, Minotaur is set in late-1990s Novi Sad whilst war rages in Kosovo. The Hungarian family at the heart of Szabolcs Tolnai's film is demonstrative of a once outwards-facing multi-cultural environment that the filmmaker suggests has since been degraded by fear and the harsh realities of living in Serbia. Ana, the family's matriarch, is a former editor of the daily newspaper's culture pages - which, she remarks, "ceased... and culture sometime later". With a long-missing son and errant former pop star husband, meanwhile slowly stripping their apartment of its possessions, she can do much worse than join the town's neo-avantgardists in an 'invisible' art project. (International Film Festival Rotterdam)