Best movies like My Lake

An uptight English writer traveling to Crete on a matter of business finds his life changed forever when he meets the gregarious Alexis Zorba.

An exiled filmmaker finally returns to his home country where former mysteries and afflictions of his early life come back to haunt him once more.

This scene is a part of the very first film shot produced by the Manaki Brothers. Despina, the Janaki and Milton Manaki's grandmother, was recorded weaving in one high-angle shot. For no apparent reason, the first shot made in Macedonia, in the Balkans in fact, made by these two cinematography pioneers, contains peculiar symbolics: at the moment when the grandmother Despina spins the weaving wheel, film starts rolling in our country.

Twice-orphaned Jace, a seven-year-old Albanian of Greek origin, witnesses a massacre that wipes out his entire foster family in Argyrokastron, and then falls in the hands of a bunch of ruthless gangsters who "export" children abroad for various profitable reasons (ranging from beggary to organ trade). Jace ends up in Athens, Greece, begging at street corners, exploring the secret horrors of brutal institutions for young offenders or, much later, serving obscure patrons, in an underworld where violent loss seems to be his only destiny. The movie follows Jace's inverted Odyssey in a dark universe of abuse, murder and fear, as he desperately (and silently) seeks for a "family" of his own or, at least, for a sense of belonging

An eighteen year old high school drop out and his twenty-seven year old friend start trafficking marijuana across the border of Canada in order to make money and their lives are changed forever.

A harsh dose of cinematic realism about a harsh time – the Bosnian War of the 1990s – Juanita Wilson's drama is taken from true stories revealed during the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague. Samira is a modern schoolteacher in Sarajevo who takes a job in a small country village just as the war is beginning to ramp up. When Serbian soldiers overrun the village, shoot the men and keep the women as laborers (the older ones) and sex objects (the younger ones), Samira is subjected to the basest form of treatment imaginable.

The circularity of violence seen in a story that circles on itself. In Macedonia, during the war in Bosnia, Christians hunt an ethnic Albanian girl who may have murdered one of their own. A young monk who's taken a vow of silence offers her protection. In London, a photographic editor who's pregnant needs to talk it out with her estranged husband and chooses a toney restaurant.

The paths of a desperate man and an imprisoned young woman cross unexpectedly in the den of a mysterious killer.

Set in Indiana in 1987, Pike Ables is charged with a murder he can’t remember in the midst of heroin withdrawal. Now, he must make a decision: go to jail or head for the Canadian border to start a new life. His only hope is his younger brother, Jack, a frustrated psychiatrist and soon-to-be father who is ready to leave everything behind – including his pregnant wife – to try and save him. Things aren’t as they seem when the brothers try to navigate out of the darkness and into the light.

Fahrije’s husband has been missing since the war in Kosovo so she sets up her own small business to provide for her kids, but as she fights against a patriarchal society that does not support her, she faces a crucial decision: to wait for his return, or to continue to persevere.

A disaffected mechanic and his unemployed wife face a harrowing several days when their daughter suddenly disappears.

After a major shipment of drugs goes missing on the US-Canadian border, forest ranger and former Navy SEAL Henry is plunged into survival mode when the drug cartel forces him to help retrieve the downed package. Trapped in the wilderness with no communication to the outside world, Henry finds himself face to face with Clay, a man with a personal vendetta against Henry who has returned for retribution. Now, the two mortal enemies must make a choice: put aside their past and work together, or die alone at the hands of the drug runners, a ruthless gang who will stop at nothing to retrieve their lost cargo.

When nomadic beekeepers break Honeyland’s basic rule (take half of the honey, but leave half to the bees), the last female beehunter in Europe must save the bees and restore natural balance.

Based on true events, a young man raised in a cruel and oppressive family environment, leaves Albania with the dream of becoming a rock star and living a better life. His reckless character and his youth passions lead him to commit a murder in Athens. Chased by everyone, even by his own self, he is imprisoned under the harshest conditions. With the help of a German doctor, he learns to feel sympathy for others and guilt for his crime. His deep remorse will lead him from darkness to light.

At a small border-post on the Yugoslav-Albanian border, yet another generation of soldiers suffering the usual amount of boredom awaits the end of their service, counting days to the moment when they should take their uniforms off for good. It is the spring of 1987 and the thought never even crosses their mind that they would, in fact, put them back on quite soon and go to war.

A single mom in the 1970s raises her two daughters and becomes involved in illegal drug trade to make a better life.

A former volunteer in the Kosovo war returns to Albania to pursue a career in the police force. In the country's chaotic and corrupt capital city, Tirana, the ex-soldier turned cop and ends up solving the crime he committed.

Four actors travel illegally through Balkan borders in war times to a theatre festival. But their real mission is to find their idol Michael Palin.

Blerim, an employee of a TV station, takes on a highly unusual side gig - one that immerses him in a world of mental illness, paranoia, and blurred reality.

In an Albanian town known for drug production and trafficking an elite group of cops set out to end the war waged against the local police.

A woman hires soldier-of-fortune Carson to smuggle her into Albania by way of Greece. Their trouble is just beginning when they get there.

Baklava is a fairy tale about a country in the heart of the Peninsula and two brothers, separated by the timelessness of the Transition. Djore is 26, dresses in black, listens to drum & bass and does graffiti. Kotze is 9, wears a silver chain, steals, fights and loves pop folk. Their journey in search of a buried treasure introduce us in an end neighborhood populated with weird characters, dark dreams and child's fantasies.

Vele can’t afford to buy the expensive medications for his father who has cancer. Desperate, he steals marijuana from some criminals, makes a cake with it and gives it to his father, hoping it will reduce his pain. His father’s health miraculously improves, but Vele is suddenly confronted by neighbors who demand the recipe for the “remedial” cake and by the criminals who want their drugs back.

Two Albanian brothers migrate to Greece and try, each in his own way, to integrate into their host country by following two different lifestyles.

An historical film that follows the life of Alexander the Great, the Macedonian king that united all ancient Greek tribes and led them against the vast Persian Empire. Alexander conquered most of the then-known world and created a Greek empire that spanned all the way from the Balkans to India.

A middle-aged fisherman living with his wife and daughter on Greece’s northern border, who is drowning in debt, starts to smuggle migrants across the border lake, in exchange for a hefty fee. Until a tragic incident strikes the family, pushing the three heroes to face their own personal impasses and weaknesses.

A Macedonian family from Bitola at the turn of the twentieth century tries to survive, preserve its roots and remain together.

A random explosion connects three stories, where strangers are trying to find some way to live on the edge of legality.

A struggling family in Albania, wrestling with tradition, must unite against a mysterious clan's aggressions, leading to a 'blood feud' that is all too familiar in the Balkans.

A woman who is raped and gives birth to a child in war torn Kosovo, struggles to keep her child.

Rudina sets off on a long journey with her unmarried pregnant sister, Elma, to meet their strict and traditional father in the Albanian village where they were born. As Rudina's car makes its way over the mountains, Elma comes up with a plan to enlist a former classmate to play the part of her husband.

On the day before Easter 2012, the bodies of four teenagers were found by the edge of a lake just outside Skopje. The bodies had been lined up, each with a bullet hole in their head. The boys had been on a fishing trip. The nation was shocked. Rumours run wild. It is a film about a country where life can come to a sudden end without cause or explanation.

World War II. Italians accuse the residents of a village in South Albania of giving signals to the Greeks during the Greek-Italian War.

Benjamin and Dom have been best friends since they were kids. On their last night together, Dom plans to send Benjamin off with a pocketful of cash. All he has to do is deliver a package over the border for a friend...

1939, right before the beginning of the Second World War in Europe. Aleksandar Pingo, young, handsome lawyer from Veles, Macedonia, far on the south of the Balkans, lives his days as a bachelor.