Tisoč ur bridkosti za eno uro veselja — Ivan Cankar

Ivan Cankar, the first Slovene professional writer, is the main character in this full-feature documentary film. He was a public intellectual, who never remained silent. He liked to argue, insult people, spit, sometimes even on his own people. In most cases, these actions were justified, as the people were ethically questionable. He was an eternal rebel, in eternal debts, constantly without money, he kept on borrowing, begging for payments, most often for books he had not written yet. He would sell his drawings and manuscripts to raise some money. He spent a lot of his money on drinks. And of course, there were women, fictitious and real. In literature, he praised them, in life he felt contempt for them. He ran away from them, in the same way as he ran from his responsibilities. The only responsibility he acknowledged was for his fictitious characters. An artist. After his death, Cankar became a mythological being, similar to Kurent – a musician who sold his soul to the devil. A myth. Already during his lifetime Cankar was believed to be an outstanding artist, similar to Kurent – people were always fascinated when they heard the genius of one or the other. They were also appalled, especially when they sobered up. Cankar wrote Kurent during his stay in Sarajevo, where he also wrote The Farmhands, both merely a few years before the successor to the Habsburg monarchy was assassinated. Kurent’s destiny, the destiny of an artist in general – persecuted, despised, misunderstood, just like today - haunted Cankar throughout his life. On the symbolic level, this ended with the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the formation of Yugoslavia. He died a death unworthy of a great writer. The film shows, through Kurent’s story, all essential components of Cankar’s literature. The story about his work and life is told by France Bernik, writer Alenka Puhar, Manca G. Renko, Ph.D., Mateja Ratej, Ph.D., and many other aficionados of his exceptional opus. Fragments from the story Kurent are interpreted by Jurij Souček, and the film also includes fragments from the contemporary version of Kurent, the musical Rok Kurent. A special characteristic of the film can be found in the animated sequences, which show the time before and immediately after World War I when the writer’s turbulent life ended in a still-unexplained death.