Ask anyone you know to list countries with a strong filmmaking tradition and they’re probably not going to mention Slovenia. Slovenia’s a small nation with a population of just over half that of the city of Los Angeles, a language spoken only by its inhabitants, and a long history of being incorporated into other countries and/or empires. It was only as recently as 1991 that Slovenia finally achieved independence. Slovenes have been struggling for centuries to hold on to their own identity–not an easy task, but one they’ve managed to achieve nonetheless.

Somehow during this long struggle Slovenia has managed to develop a cinematic tradition that’s over 100 years old. Northwest Film Forum is giving you a chance to get a taste of this tradition with their series At the Crossroads: Slovenian Cinema which runs December 5th through 14th.

The first film in the series is Vesna, a film so beloved in Slovenia that the national film award is named for it. Released in 1953 (while Slovenia was still part of Yugoslavia), Vesna is a sweet and light-hearted comedy in which the title character, daughter of a tough math professor, is courted by a young student named Samo whose designs on her may or may not be cover for his true desire: a glimpse of her father’s final exam.

Other films in the series include Dance in the Rain (12/06), a New Wave styled examination of the dying relationship between Peter, a struggling painter, and Marusa, his stage actress older lover. As their relationship grows more and more distant, the landscape around them grows more and more decrepit and desolate. Emotional solitude is a theme that crops up also in Paper Planes, a quietly thoughtful story of a photographer whose fashionable parties leave him feeling unfulfilled and empty, until he meets the beautiful young ballet dancer whose image enraptured him from the first time he saw it on film. (12/07).

In Raft of the Medusa(12/12), two young provincial schoolteachers are convinced they’ll die of boredom until a troupe of avante garde artists arrive in town to introduce the locals to Dadaism, Surrealism and Futurism, outraging the rest of the town but charming the teachers into joining their artistic revolution.

Idle Running (12/13) is a delightful low budget film about a slacker university student named Dizzy who spends his days idly watching TV, drinking with his buddies, and socializing with his dorm mates, who exemplify the types you find on any college campus, including the inseparable couple only marginally aware of the world surrounding their own private universe and the great girl that all the guys like but none of them date. Dizzy would be happy to drift along on his own lethargy forever but then his studious new roommate moves in his pregnant girlfriend, Dizzy’s own girlfriend abandons their committment-free relationship and Dizzy is challenged to take the first steps towards actually living his life instead of simply experiencing it.

The final film in the series, on 12/14, is Sweet Dreams, a Vesna award winning film from 2001. Thirteen year old Egon lives with his sweet but crazy grandmother and his no less crazy but not nearly as kind-hearted mother in Tito controlled 1970s Yugoslavia; his navigations through the complicated world around him while he pursues his goal of conning his mother into buying him a record player present a unique look at an era of the past.