SLOVENIAN FILM DATABASE
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Slovenian films and minority co-productions enjoyed some festival exposure all over the world in June. They were being shown from New York, via London, Annecy and Cluj-Napoca, all the way to Shanghai.
Tribeca Film Festival (June 3-14) hosted the world premiere of the sophomore feature film Skateboarding Is Not for Girls by Dina Duma. The film was eventually awarded with the Nora Ephron award which is being given out to the film that represents the spirit of the titular American filmmaker. Skateboarding Is Not for Girls was staged as a co-production between North Macedonia, Slovenia, Belgium and Croatia through the companies Sisters and Brother Mitevski, Vertigo, Entre Chien et Loup and Terminal 3 Film in co-production with Beside Production, VOO, BeTV, Orange Belgium, RTV Slovenia and Kinology with the support of the North Macedonian Film Agency, Centre for Film and Audiovisual Media of Wallonia-Brussels, Slovenian Film Centre, Croatian Audiovisual Centre, Eurimages, Wallimage and Viba Film Studio. Slovenian creative contribution consists of the costume designer Mateja Fajt and make-up designer Mojca Gorogranc Petrushevska.
The 34th edition of the independent film festival Raindance took place in London from June 17-26. Slovenia was represented by the film Ida Who Sang So Badly Even the Dead Rose Up and Joined Her in Song by Ester Ivakič. It was screened at Narrative Feature and Female Gaze sections of the programme. Ivakič’s debut feature premiered at the last year’s edition of Cottbus, where it won the prize of the ecumenical jury. FIPRESCI prize at LIFFE and Special Jury Prize at Torino Film Festival ensued shortly. Its next stop on the festival tour is Busan International Kids & Youth Film Festival that will run from 8-14 July.
The short animated film Cosmonauts by Leo Černic was selected to compete at this year’s edition of Annecy (June 21-27), which is one of the biggest and best-known animated film gatherings in the world. Černic’s meditation on the topics love, solitude and separation set in space premiered earlier this year at Berlinale, and has been touring festivals since.
Three Slovenian titles were also presented at the 25th Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF), which took place in Cluj-Napoca from June 12-21. Marko Naberšnik’s Whites Wash at Ninety continued its successful tour of festivals and screenings abroad (it was also screened in Vienna on June 12) with a screening in the popular non-competitive Supernova section of the festival programme. The film is based on the eponymous memoir novel by Bronja Žakelj, and was staged as a co-production between Perfo Film (Slovenia), Quasar (Italy), Kinorama (Croatia), Biberche (Serbia), Črna Machka (North Macedonia) and Protos film (Montenegro). In the Smart 7 section, which is a competitive programme of the network of seven festivals supported by Creative Europe MEDIA, one more Slovenian minority co-production was shown. It is A River’s Gaze by the Romanian filmmaker Andreea Cristina Borțun. Genre-wise, it could be defined as a coming-of-age psychological drama. It was staged as a co-production between Romania (Atelier de Film), Slovenia (Perfo) and France (Films de Force Majeure). The Slovenian creative contribution reflects in sound and music partly handled by Sonolab and Sašo Kalan. Jakob Krese’s upcoming documentary Gods Must Be Mistaken was presented at the Docu Rough Cut Boutique, while the Slovenian Film Centre director Nataša Bučar was one of the speakers at the roundtable National Film Centers: Shifting from Traditional Cinema to Audiovisual, Cross-Media Storytelling, and Sustainable Production.
The Slovenian animated short film Julka, directed by Valeria Cozzarini and produced by Boštjan Ikovic for the company Arsmedia, celebrated its international premiere at Shanghai International Film Festival (12-21 June). It is based on a short story by the late Trieste-based Slovenian writer Boris Pahor (1913-2022), and tells the story of the national identity and language under the threat of fascism through the prism of a Slovene-speaking girl and the discrimination she and her classmates have to endure in school. This Slovenian-Italian-Croatian-Bulgarian co-production was co-produced by RTV Slovenia, Altreforme, Solaria Film, 001, Tuna Film – E, Samsara, PREMIERstudio + and Viba Film, and supported by the Slovenian Film Centre, Io Sono Friuli Venezia Giulia, FVG Film Commission, FVG Audiovisual Fund, MiBACT, Re-Act, Croatian Audiovisual Centre and National Film Centre of Bulgaria.
Source: Slovenian Film Centre
