This was a bit of a hotchpotch, connected only by their “fringe” geography, but interesting nonetheless.

The Travelling Players, Theo Angelopoulos, 1975

Slow cinema. Very slow cinema. I see that The Travelling Players is almost four hours long. I’ll give it a go; I should know enough Greek history to grasp something of it, but the style – elliptical, demanding, non-linear – may defeat me. It’s about WWII, the civil war and its aftermath. Like la Movida Madrileña, this came from a fractured country at the end of military repression, but it had none of the obvious energy of, say, Almodóvar.

Black Cat, White Cat, Emir Kusturica, 1998

Chaotic and exuberant. It’s set amongst a Roma community on the banks of the Danube and is the polar opposite of slow cinema. This did remind me of Almodóvar in its all-embracing acceptance of all human behaviour.

Winter Sleep, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2014

Hmm. Visually it gripped: poor dwellings in Cappadocia looking like half-eaten gingerbread houses. It’s about a hotel owner and landlord, but I’m guessing that it’s also about Turkey itself.