A Film a Week - The Crystal Planet / Kristalni planet

 previously published on Cineuropa

After the death of the only Yugoslav Oscar winner, Dušan Vukotić (1927-1998), who won his statuette for the animated short The Substitute (1961), it took Croatian filmmaker Arsen Anton Ostojić a decade to ask for and acquire the rights to film Vukotić’s unfinished feature-length animated project The Crystal Planet, for which the latter also wrote the story. It was a further decade or so before Ostojić actually started making the project come to life. The modern animated feature is now completed and ready to be presented to a worldwide audience. After its world premiere at the Zlín Film Festival, it was presented to the Croatian public at the Pula Film Festival, where it won the Special Golden Arena for its contribution to Croatian animation.

After her mother’s death in an accident, 11-year-old girl Rea reluctantly moves with her engineer father, Val, to the titular crystal planet in order to start a new life. The father is about to begin a new job as the right-hand man to the robot-factory owner and ruler of the planet, Governor Mordokan. The entrepreneur’s newest inventions are (still glitchy) robotic pets, as animals are forbidden on the planet. Elections are just around the corner, and Val’s efforts are needed to secure the governor’s victory against rival candidate Sandra, who campaigns on environmental issues.

All Rea wants is to go back to Earth, which she still calls home. But things begin to change when she meets and befriends her next-door neighbour, Sandra’s son Andy. On one of their first adventures, they encounter and save the cub of a local animal species and realise that the planet has its own ecosystem that is being endangered by the pollution created by Mordokan’s factory. They try to keep their find a secret, but the revelation threatens to rewrite all of the rules on the planet. Two single-parent families, with the help of the intelligent and empathetic species, must therefore fight the establishment.

The Crystal Planet is clearly aimed at younger audiences, so one shouldn’t expect any kind of nuance in delivering its environmentally conscious message. The heroes and villains simply wear their allegiances, and often their thoughts and inner turmoil, on their sleeves. The storytelling also suffers from some deus ex machina plot devices and twists, while mimicking the US style of children’s animation and even introducing a couple of songs as transitions between the acts. However, the script written by Ostojić, Aleksandar Žiljak and Brett Shumway redeems itself with some warm-hearted humour and a good helping of sincerity.

On the technical side, the combination of model-based animation and CGI serves its purpose perfectly well, as it is blended together smoothly, so the work of the team of animators should be commended. The same goes for Tomáš Sysel’s cinematography, which creates the sense of a well-rounded world while capturing the heroes in action and the rich background textures at the same time. Arsen Anton Ostojić’s sure-handed directing might come as a surprise for an animation first-timer (although he did co-produce one such title, The Oddsockeaters, back in 2016), and the editing by Lucie Haladová helps everything flow smoothly while keeping the running time around the 90-minute mark.

The Crystal Planet is a very ambitious film. The existence of dubbed versions in several languages, including the worldwide one in English (voiced by, among others, Jeremy Irons, Vanessa Redgrave and Michael York), could help the movie cross several borders. In the context of Croatian cinema, it is a valuable addition to the recently revived tradition of feature-length animation for younger audiences.

A Film a Week - Small Things / Male stvari

 previously published on Cineuropa

Although Zvonimir Jurić’s body of work is not particularly large for a career spanning more than 30 years, with only three feature-length films helmed solely by him and six more made in collaboration with other filmmakers, he is regarded as one of the finest and most respected Croatian auteurs. The reason for this might lie in the fact that he does not seek approval, but instead picks his projects carefully and sticks to a certain realist, naturalistic style when commenting on the reality of Croatia, whether addressing hooliganism (Sex, Drink and Bloodshed, 2004), war crimes from the 1990s (The Blacks), or the gloominess of village life during the transition period (The Reaper).

Now Jurić has a new film, Small Things, an adaptation of a short story by the Croatian film critic, journalist and prose writer Jurica Pavičić, that comments on the contemporary Croatian reality and the fading of the family ties due to hastened way of life, class stratification, money and personal troubles, as well as everyday hardships. The film has just premiered at Pula Film Festival.

The film takes place on a small island not far from the coastal town of Split, where three generations of an ordinary working-class family gather to finalise the deal regarding the sale of the land for a future investment project and the division of the money. The father (thespian Izudin Bajrović, in a quiet and folksy mood) is old and ailing, but, as a man of few words, he does not complain and instead tries to keep the family together. His daughter Irena (Ivana Roščić) is a recently separated sad-sack who has also brought her two children, Kate and Ivor (played by newcomers Bepina Baričeveić and Borna Mihovilović, respectively), who keep arguing and fighting. The other daughter, Anica (Marija Škaričić), also tries to carry out her father’s balancing act, but she is not ready to move on from a recent loss in her life. The son Ivan (played by actor and filmmaker Juraj Lerotić, behind the international success Safe Place) is depressed and, the family fears, potentially suicidal. The atmosphere is gloomy, and some unspoken things and resentments begin to surface over the course of a few grey winter days…

The script written by Jurić and Pavičić displays some dramaturgical excellence, both in the completely natural-sounding dialogue and in the timing of seemingly small but significant revelations, as well as much-needed moments of relief from the overwhelming gloominess. It also serves the actors perfectly, allowing them to deliver their lived-in, low-key bravura performances. The cast, consisting of Croatian A-listers, seizes this opportunity, whether in the lead roles or in the episodic parts, as is the case with Snježana Sinovčič Šiškov in the role of the neighbour.

Unlike some of his previous films, which were marked by dynamic camerawork, Jurić here opts almost exclusively for long, carefully framed static shots lensed by Marko Brdar that highlight the staleness of life, whether the reason for that staleness is old age, personal crisis, depression or simply the weather. The atmosphere is further emphasised by the absence of music, the sound design by Julij Zornik and Ognjen Popić, which is full of howling wind, and some dim lighting firmly glued to Ana Štulina’s precise editing. It all makes Small Things feel like a discreetly unpleasant, but quite necessary and highly emotional viewing experience.

A Film a Week - City of Fathers / Mesto otcu

 previously published on Cineuropa

It has been thirteen years since the veteran Czech filmmaker Zdeněk Tyc directed a feature film, the latest until now being Like Never Before. The filmmaker behind Seize the Day (1996) and El Paso (2009), among other titles, is now back with another easily accessible and audience-friendly piece. City of Fathers has just premiered at the 60^th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival as part of the Special Screenings section.

Father and son don't seem to have much in common, except for a shared first name (Richard) and the modest flat in a socialist-era housing block in a small Czech city they call home. Richard Jr, nicknamed Ríša (Tomáš Vravník, glimpsed in the 2020 thriller Scumbag), is in fact a gentle factory worker who hides behind the mask of a tough guy, listening to punk rock and keeping his "part-time" girlfriend, Lenka (Pavlína Štorková) – who raises her son, Miša, alone – at arm's length. Richard Sr (Vladimír Javorský, most recently seen in Agnieszka Holland's Franz) is a neat, well-mannered retired teacher who prefers operatic arias and Ingmar Bergman's films. The two men have lived alone ever since Ríša's alcoholic mother, Renata, left them, and Ríša has spent much of his life trying, unsuccessfully, to re-establish contact with her: he knew she lived on the streets as a beggar and gave her change whenever he encountered her, but she never once engaged him in a proper conversation.

When Renata suddenly dies, and Ríša learns from her drinking buddies that his real father might be one of the members of Kokoti (meaning "The Dicks"), an old communist-era punk rock band, he sets off on a journey of investigation – first online, then in person, in the nearby city of Ostrava. As he tracks down the three "candidates" – a family man and fresh grandfather, a trashy horror film director, and a violent drunk – in order to collect swabs from them for DNA testing, he risks falling off the wagon of sobriety himself, but also learns a thing or two about who he really is.

Yes, the story at the heart of City of Fathers is almost as old as cinema itself, told and retold endlessly, yet it still serves different geographical and political contexts equally well. That said, this type of film is better suited to general theatrical release – and even Sunday-afternoon TV slots – than to the festival circuit. The reason might lie in Tyc's directorial approach, which is serviceable and efficient, but also somewhat textbook.

That said, it would be unfair to call the film entirely flavourless: Roman Vojkůvka's script delivers plenty of the typically Czech dry humour, in situations that are somewhat predictable yet still play out in an entertaining way. The camerawork by Tomáš Kresta, meanwhile, captures a contemporary small-town Czechia rarely seen on the big screen, while the soundtrack – drawing on songs from both older and newer local punk rock bands – works effectively as commentary on the characters, their actions, and the environment they inhabit.

The true heroes of the film's success, however, are its actors. The chemistry between the two leads is excellent and so is their comedic timing. As a bonus, the supporting cast of character actors is also on top of its game, following the leads with real awareness, and the director puts the ensemble to good use, wringing out both laughs and moments of genuine emotional resonance. In the end, City of Fathers is a passable, even pleasant watch that doesn't demand much of the viewer.

A Film a Week - Paris Paris

 previously published on Cineuropa

Big, metropolitan cities have been attracting people – from the same country and beyond – for centuries, if not millennia, and countless stories have been told on the subject. They usually begin with a kind of fascination rooted in romanticised illusions, before the whole thing curdles into hardship, struggle and, more often than not, disappointment. Over the past couple of centuries, Paris in particular has become synonymous with such stories: many arrive harbouring illusions about the City of Light drawn from books, films and art, only for few to glimpse its underbelly before becoming part of it themselves.

Premiering in the Proxima competition at the 60th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Isabelle Tollenaere’s debut fiction feature Paris Paris tells one such story, set in the milieu of migrants and refugees searching for their own slice of happiness in the French metropolis. Coming from a background in documentaries such as Battles and Victoria, Tollenaere sets out to tell a true story, but by somewhat different means.

The central stage for this story – or, more accurately, this collection of short stories driven by three characters – is a squat in a soon-to-be-demolished building in La Défense. Yi-En (Chen Yi-En) claims to have been born and raised in Paris, yet he doesn't speak a word of French, and so he enrols in a language course, where he meets others in a position similar to his own. One of them is the Palestinian refugee Hamzah (Mahmoud Beshtawi), who claims to be a poet but has to support himself by selling cheap toys on the streets. The two strike up a friendship, and Hamzah moves into the flat Yi-En shares with a Congolese construction worker, Junior (David Mutamba).

Each of the three men has his own story to tell. For Hamzah, it is the war and the destruction it has brought upon him, his neighbours and his compatriots. For Junior, it is the city of Lubumbashi, which has changed so much he can no longer recognise it. And for Yi-En, it is his actual home town – a film-set-like replica of Paris built in China as a real-estate gimmick. Yi-En also keeps losing things (knives, shoelaces, even his wallet), yet keeps "finding" living creatures, both animals and people in need, while his eventual disappearance might signal the disappearance of the improvised "world" the three of them built for themselves from the leftovers of the decaying world around them.

Tollenaere opens her film in a slightly, artistically polished docu-fiction style, with non-professional actors playing variations on the types of characters they naturally embody. A trained eye and ear can spot that the whole thing is scripted, yet it still rings completely true and real – perhaps thanks to Thomas Verijke's strictly static camerawork in a boxy 4:3 ratio, and the filmmaker's own precise editing, which frames the story with a sense of gravity.

However, Tollenaere is aware that this approach can only take her so far, and she intervenes to shift things – first at the script level, then in execution, as the camera begins slowly moving around the characters. A warm, slightly absurdist humour starts to emerge, and the echoes of Wim Wenders' urban travelogues and Jim Jarmusch's stories of friendship on the margins – as the only way of surviving life there – become clearer. The film's initial message isn't exactly betrayed, but it doesn't come across quite so easily either. Nevertheless, Paris Paris radiates a certain warm-heartedness, even if the stories it tells are far from heart-warming.

A Film a Week - A Whole Person Almost / Enas olokliros anthropos schedon

 previously published on Cineuropa

Islands and their islanders… They have so much in common with one another, and differ greatly from the rest of the world. It must have something to do with the sense of community in relative isolation. At least, this is a common conception that serves as the starting point of Efthimis Kosemund Sanidis' debut feature A Whole Person Almost, which has just premiered in Karlovy Vary's Proxima competition. However, the journey takes us in different directions.

Ilias (Anastasis Georgoulas), a young man burdened by debt, crosses the sea to claim his inheritance from his late, estranged father — who, as far as he knows, worked as the island's doctor. He expects it to be a simple in-and-out job, but local customs and his father's saint-like reputation among the islanders (the father's name, Christos, is something of a giveaway) soon get in his way, forcing him to stay far longer than planned. Matters are complicated further by the fact that his father practised medicine without a proper licence, never charged his patients, and lived off the islanders' charity like a kind of hermit — meaning Ilias has little to inherit beyond an old shipping container converted into a makeshift home and workspace.

The longer Ilias stays on the island, the more locals he encounters – among them his father's former lover, Karina (Elena Topalidou, of Magnetic Fields fame), who runs a modest lodging house, and the young woman who works alongside her, Kalliopi (Flomaria Papadaki, seen in Animal). Gradually, his perception of both his father and himself begins to shift. He also starts noticing stranger goings-on: mysterious power outages and an epidemic of fainting fits – one he eventually succumbs to himself, to the point of losing his physical strength entirely. But with Kalliopi as his guide and ally, he is offered a chance at redemption, and perhaps even love.

Even after almost twenty years, the so-called Greek Weird Wave still appears to be going strong. Here, the setting of an unnamed island – one that lives by its own rules, at once rigid and ever-changing – serves that purpose perfectly, as the filmmaker and his co-writer, Elizampetta Ilia Georgiadou, explore not just the setting itself, but also the characters' inner lives and psychology.

This is evident in cinematographer Christos Voudouris' shots, which gently morph from distant observation into more intimate portraits as the plot slowly unfolds. Editor Livia Neroutsopoulou establishes an unhurried tempo, yet much-needed tension is introduced through a piano-heavy score that kicks in whenever a pattern needs breaking or shifting. The cast, meanwhile, does its best – and largely succeeds – in rendering these characters as palpable human beings.

One might argue that a sense of weirdness comes to dominate the film as it progresses, overtaking the coherence of its plot and the protagonist's inner journey, leaving viewers wondering what Efthimis Kosemund Sanidis' endgame might be. But on an emotional and visceral level, A Whole Person Almost resonates more strongly than it does on a purely rational one.

A Film a Week - Yugo Goes to America / Yugo ide u Ameriku

 previously published on Cineuropa

Most people in the countries of the former Yugoslavia have a memory of, or a story to tell about, the Yugo car: they drove one, or rode as passengers in those belonging to their parents, uncles or neighbours; they learned to drive in one; they had their first road trip or their first kiss in one. It was never a good or a reliable motor, but it was “theirs”. And the fact that it was somewhat successfully sold in the United States in the late 1980s and early 1990s further reinforced the myth of the greatness of Yugoslavia, despite its rapid and volatile collapse.

This serves as the starting point for Serbian writer-turned-filmmaker Filip Grujić to explore collective memories and to create some new ones while fulfilling his dream of travelling across the USA. Co-helmed with director of photography Aleksa Borković, Yugo Goes to America world-premiered at CPH:DOX, and it enjoyed its first national screening as the opening movie of the 19th edition of Beldocs.

Grujić could not remember his own personal story about his parents’ red Yugo, the car he was brought home in from the maternity ward. They divorced and sold the car a couple of years later, so Filip never owned or drove one. So, his idea was simple: to create his own Yugo-related memories while travelling across the United States in an imported red model. However, bureaucracy got in the way, so Filip, Aleksa and the sound guy (also Filip’s childhood friend), Aki, had to purchase one of the rare remaining examples there. Now in a black model, and accompanied by the US production crew consisting of Russ and Carlos, they set off on a journey from New York to Los Angeles with the intention of exploring the story of the Yugo’s short-lived success, followed by its failure, in America.

During their road trip, they set up interviews with the director and vice-president of the Yugo America company, which imported and sold the cars, Malcom Bricklin and Tony Ciminera; Czechoslovak immigrant Miro Kefurt, who was the first man to import it privately; and Jason Vuić, the author of the book The Yugo: The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History. However, the fact that their vehicle breaks down constantly, like a proper Yugo, also leads them to enthusiasts like Ohio-based mechanic, racer and comedian (of sorts) Nick Bygrave, and a couple of Iowa-based Bosnian-US nationals called Alen and Hasan.

Grujić and Borković have also collected stories about the USA, migration and the little oddities of life in some almost mythical places and environments, such as the large Serbian community in Chicago; Nashville; Dallas, where a new sound girl coveting the American Dream, Ivana, joined them; Las Vegas; on desert roads; and Los Angeles, where their journey ended. With Grujić providing his own lyrical and reflexive voice-over narration, the crew members often swapped roles and stepped in front of the camera themselves. This adventure only took its final shape through the editing, handled by Kristina Todorović, while the music composed by Boško Mijušković brought in older and newer songs by various artists from the former Yugoslavia in order to set the emotional tone of the film.

In the end, Yugo Goes to America is not a movie about a car, a company history or even the memories of Yugoslavia that collapsed in a bloody civil war. It is about adventure, dreams, friendship, the melting pot that is the USA and the peculiarities of different cultures coming together in the big, wide world. It is therefore about life itself.

A Film a Week - Remember My Song / Sjeti se moje pjesme

 previously published on Cineuropa

The collapse of Yugoslavia remains a subject of interest across generations in the states that succeeded it after the wars of the early 1990s. The central question is how the proclaimed ideals of “brotherhood and unity” in the former socialist regime morphed into nationalist hatred and quasi-tribal wars. Artists across different disciplines have sought to capture this transformation through metaphors drawn from a range of settings, such as ethnically mixed villages and towns, workplaces that employed large numbers of people, and communal spaces – bars, clubs, inns and taverns once widely frequented.

One such tavern that operated in the 1980s stands at the centre of the documentary Remember My Song, directed by Jelena Bosanac and Tanja Brzaković. The film has just premiered in the regional competition at ZagrebDox. The opening scene shows an ageing man reciting a poem about his village of Jugovo Polje beside its road sign. The rhymes are somewhat laboured and the worldview expressed in the poem is slightly naive, evoking the idyll before the war and portraying the war itself as a kind of demon that appeared from nowhere. The scene is followed by material from a personal archive, showing the immediate consequences of the events of the early 1990s: a bare structure too large to be a single residential unit, yet not large enough to function as an industrial building. In the ruins, completely ransacked years earlier, a woman finds an old LP record, and the time capsule opens.

It takes us to a tavern called Jablan, meaning “poplar”, which operated in a village near a busy road. Its owner, Nikola, was a capable businessman, and his wife Milena had a gift for managing staff. During the day, endless meals were prepared for passing truckers, and countless coffees from the first espresso machine in the area were served. On weekend nights, the tavern turned into a folk music disco, with live performances by aspiring singers and even established stars brought in from Belgrade. The owners and staff lived in harmony and unity, while the guests kept spending their money and “producing” countless anecdotes. Questions of nationality were never raised – until nationalism reached Jablan through its guests in the early 1990s, when politicians were stirring people up for war.

However authentic it may be, the story is quite typical, touching on all of the familiar cornerstones of idyll and nostalgia. What makes Remember My Song stand out, however, is the filmmakers’ approach. Much of the film is built entirely from found VHS footage and photographic material re-shot by Željko Felbar and edited by Hrvoslava Brkušić, using experimental forward and rewind techniques to create a psychedelic effect. This effect is further enhanced by the use of (Serbian) folk music, which taps into deeply rooted emotions and is further distorted by being sourced directly from ageing VHS recordings. Over this material, Milena, the waiters, the cooks, the musicians and the regular singer Haska narrate the stories they have collected.

The filmmakers’ decision to shift their approach once the tavern’s golden years are over, turning to a series of shots of empty spaces filmed by Boško Đorđević, proves to be another effective choice, as the stylistic contrast works very well and highlights the consequences of war and destruction. In the end, with Remember My Song, Bosanac and Brzaković may be telling a well-known, oft-told story, but they do so in a captivating manner.

A Film a Week - Pixie. The New Beginning / Skrzat. Nowy poczatek

 previously published on Cineuropa

We might pretend it’s not true, but children can be cruel and manipulative. They can inflict a lot of pain, and even torture, on peers of theirs who do not fit in with the group. Being the new kid somewhere and not meeting the unwritten “standards” of the environment can sometimes constitute an almost hopeless situation. This is the case for the protagonist of Krzysztof Komander’s feature-length directorial debut, Pixie. The New Beginning. This film, clearly targeting younger audiences, premiered in Locarno Kids, enjoyed a decent run while in domestic distribution in Poland and competed at Schlingel before playing in the Zagreb Film Festival’s KinoKino sidebar.

Despite being 11 years old, Hania (Amelia Golda) still believes in pixies, the mythical creatures that her mother (Agata Turkot, in flashbacks) taught her about, and she is more than willing to express and defend her beliefs. Unfortunately, she is the new kid in a provincial school, and her peers are way less naive than her, so she ends up at the bottom of the bullying “food chain”. To make things worse, her single father (Arkadiusz Jakubik, from I’m a Killer and Clergy) has too much work as a professional fireman to cater to his daughter’s emotional needs.

In a deal struck between the dad and the class’s teacher (Anna Smolowik), Hania is introduced to the teacher’s son and another bullied “bottom feeder”, Michał (Maksymilian Zieliński), who is a science nerd. After a bit of a rocky start, the two arrange a deal: he will “invent” a pixie detector so that she can prove herself right, and the rest of the class wrong, regarding the existence of these creatures. In a stroke of pure luck, the two stumble upon a nervous and mischievous male pixie called Sindri (voiced by Borys Szyc), who says he is willing to reveal himself to the world if the duo can complete a series of tasks…

Of course, the whole pixie thing is just a metaphor for clinging to something from a past that seems less traumatic than a present marked by grief. Even younger children, if they have some movie-watching experience, can guess this pretty early on, and this jeopardises the rest of the movie, in a way. Komander has complete creative control of the filmmaking process as the director, screenwriter and editor, with the latter being his primary profession. The trouble is that he lacks a pair of fresh eyes to trim off some of the unnecessary repetitions and reduce the running time, which comes close to 100 minutes.

The problem is that the repetitions are not fully used to develop the two leading children’s characters beyond the level of archetypes with a couple of specific characteristics each, so the talented but inexperienced actors are cornered into giving one-note performances. The adults in the cast have more leeway to vary their characters, but they are usually used for the purposes of some gentle humour or releasing the pressure, since the altercations between the children are presented in an almost naturalistic way.

Although Wojciech Frycz’s score highlights the predictability of the plot and the points Komander wants to make, the rest of the technical aspects serve as a glue, of sorts. This is especially true for Natalia Anna Matejka’s lively production design and Dzvinka Kukul’s costumes, as captured by cinematographer Piotr Dudak’s kinetic camerawork. All things considered, Pixie. The New Beginning might fall apart under the scrutiny of an analytical adult viewer, but it possesses enough warmth and emotion to please its primary target audience and to convey a positive message.

A Film a Week - Our Father / Oče naš

 previously published on Cineuropa

Back in 2009, controversy erupted in Serbia. After a few leaked videos, showing recovering drug addicts being beaten in a church-operated rehabilitation centre, the unorthodox methods of the Orthodox priest Branislav Peranović came to light. The centre concerned, on the grounds of the Crna Reka monastery, was closed, but Peranović continued his work by founding another rehab clinic on the premises of another monastery. Only after one of his patients was killed by a severe beating at his hands in 2012 was Peranović arrested and stripped of his priesthood. Finally, this spring, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison, although this punishment is not yet final.

After making a name for himself with several shorts, one documentary and a few high-profile TV series, like Morning Changes Everything (2018) and Operation Sabre (2024), Serbian filmmaker Goran Stanković has made his fiction feature debut, Our Father, based on the testimonies of Crna Reka inmates. The film has premiered at the 50th Toronto International Film Festival, in the Discovery section.

We follow the events from the perspective of the newly arrived recovering addict Dejan (Vučić Perović, seen in Mother Mara), from his arrival onwards. A more seasoned inmate nicknamed Mionica (Croatian powerhouse actor Goran Marković) takes on the role of his mentor, and Dejan slowly learns the ropes of the centre. His tasks are to follow the path set out by the self-confident, hypocritical and often violent priest Father Branko (Boris Isaković) and to stay out of the way of his quick-tempered “deputies” Sava (Petar Novaković) and Ratko (Nenad Heraković).

Dejan starts believing in God and Father Branko’s preaching, so he quickly rises up the small community’s ranks. But as a video of him receiving beatings for one of his earlier misdemeanours appears in the media, he is forced to defend the controversial system that is both harming and helping him. With the case under public scrutiny, the question is not whether the situation is going to escalate, but rather when will someone be fatally injured by this unchecked power and violence.

The cinematography by Dragan Vildović, who also shot Stanković’s documentary In the Dark (2014), captures the spartan production design by Zorana Petrov in dark and murky colours that serve the topic well, while the editing by Marko Ferković reinforces the clear three-act structure and keeps the movie easy to follow at a perfectly measured pace for the running time of 90 minutes. The actors are deserving of praise as well, since Boris Isaković plays the villain in a nuanced manner, Vučić Perović matches everyman qualities with star power, and Goran Marković once again shows he is able to dig deep and serve as the troubled emotional centre of the film.

Our Father is a movie with a dense, tense atmosphere thanks to the script by Stanković and his collaborators Ognjen Sviličić, Dejan Prćić and Maja Pelević, which goes beyond exposing a specific affair and extends to the realm of those eternal psychological questions. Stanković’s precise directing also plays a part here: his sense of framing is perfect, as everyday activities are shown in hand-held shots and often in close-up, with the viewers’ attention directed at the actors’ faces, highlighting the secretive ambience, while the violence is pictured in chilling, continuous shots from a distance.

All of this amounts to a film that is equally effective for those who know the true-story context and for those who are about to encounter it for the first time. Our Father is a work that no viewer will be able to shake off easily.

A Film a Week - Whites Wash at Ninety / Belo se pere na devetdeset

 previously published on Cineuropa

In 2018, Slovenian writer Bronja Žakelj debuted with her autobiographical novel Whites Wash at Ninety, in which she, as a character, has to deal with a troubled childhood and youth during the 1980s and early 1990s, as she has to contend with tragedies and the passing of her loved ones. It became a bestseller in her home country and was later translated into eight more languages. Seven years later, the film adaptation of Whites Wash at Ninety by Marko Naberšnik, who also co-wrote the script with the author, has premiered at the 31st Sarajevo Film Festival, in the Open Air section.

Young Bronja (Mei Rabič) is growing up in a vibrant household with her brother Rok (Jaka Mehle), mother Mita (Tjaša Železnik), father Janez (Jurij Zrnec) and grandmother Dada (Anica Dobra). Just as she is about to finish primary school, the first tragedy strikes, as she loses her mother to cancer. The second happens just as she finishes secondary school and starts her further studies, as she (with Lea Cok taking over the role) gets diagnosed with lymphoma. Shortly after she gets better, Rok (Žiga Šorli plays the part in adulthood) gets killed in a fatal climbing accident, and Dada gets ill and eventually dies. Bronja cannot count on much support from her father, who seems only to be passionate about politics and the end of communism, nor from her friends or boyfriends, who can scarcely cope with the intensity of her life. However, luckily, she always has something to live for.

As he demonstrated in his previous works, Marko Naberšnik is capable of handling multiple characters and directing actors as an ensemble (Rooster’s Breakfast), pulling off an epic story unfolding over an extended period of time (Shanghai Gypsy), and paying a lot of attention to period details, even when working on a tight budget (The Woods are Still Green). The latter is definitely the strongest point of Whites Wash at Ninety, since there are no flaws to be found in Maja Moravec’s production design, Nadja Bedjanić’s costumes or the authentic props deftly captured in Max Sušnik’s cinematography. On the level of each individual scene, Naberšnik showcases his precise execution.

The trouble, however, stems from the script, as the director and the novelist do not manage to “translate” the story or the emotions it carries from one medium to another. With the help of editor Milica Jelača, they have tried to introduce flashbacks to break up the chronological order and make the film appear more cinematic, but some more serious errors can be observed in the almost non-existent character development, as most individuals come off as borderline caricatures relegated to a single trait or emotion for a certain portion of the film, or even for the duration.

Lea Cok does her best to convince us of Bronja’s resilience and determination to go on with her life, and Tjaša Železnik channels Mita’s ethereal energy in the flashbacks, but Jurij Zrnec repeatedly hits the same notes as Janez, and Serbian star Anica Dobra seems miscast for the role of Dada. Dobra does her best, as she usually does, but the role of a caring granny does not suit the naturally glamorous thesp.

In the end, Whites Wash at Ninety might be viewed as way less than the sum of its parts, some of which are outstanding. It’s an example of something getting lost in translation between the media of literature and cinema. However, the status of its source material might make it at least a minor hit on home turf, despite the movie being so clunky.

A Film a Week - Otter / Vidra

 previously published on Cineuropa

The kids are not okay. Or, in other words, we do not know whether they are or are not, because we live in two different worlds. The best we can do is to pass down our own “wisdom” and experiences to them, hoping they will mean something in their world, and to encourage them to have and pursue an agenda that might differ from our own.

A teenager pressured by the problems coming from both worlds stands at the centre of Srđan Vuletić’s newest film, Otter, the first shown in the main competition of this year’s Sarajevo Film Festival. Only a week later, Otter will move on to open the Herceg Novi Film Festival in Montenegro, and other festivals, either in the region or in the youth-films niche, could follow suit.

Our protagonist, Hana (newcomer Maša Drašler), usually does what she is told. She cannot express any interest in the pseudo-celebrity guy from her school, Balša (Savin Perišić), as her friends deem his podcast partner, the self-centred bodybuilder Luka (Pavle Marković), hotter. At home, she feels neglected by her mother, Olga (Nada Vukčević, glimpsed in How I Was Stolen by the Germans), who devotes her time to caring for Hana’s dying father.

Hana is completely out of luck, as her first intended date with Balša coincides with the day of her father’s death. After witnessing her mother submitting to the influence of the father’s brother (Serbian actor Marko Janketić), who thinks that the dying man’s last wish (to be buried in a space suit, as he was a pilot who dreamt of space flight) is silly and blasphemous, Hana sneaks away from the flat to meet with Balša and Luka, and to go with them on a trip to the lake to watch and film the solar eclipse.

The trip does not go as planned, and owing to the boys’ fragile egos, a circle of jealousy and insecurity between the three of them emerges. For the first time in her life, Hana has to make a decision and take action, even if it means defying figures of authority in a patriarchal and traditional environment such as Montenegro, where the film is set, and breaking the rules regarding the roles imposed on her as a woman and a young person by family and society.

At the beginning of the film, Vuletić shows his class as a director, since he manages to achieve a rare thing in today’s movies: the young characters are “allowed” to appear, sound and act like authentic teenagers. On top of that, he uses Filip Tot’s camerawork, Vladimir Gojun’s expectedly sure-handed editing, and the moody, ethereal electronic original music by Giorgio Giampà and Marta Cucchesini as pieces of a puzzle intended to leave a pretty strong impression.

However, halfway through, the characters’ actions, some of them drastic, start feeling abrupt, lacking proper motivation and appearing not so well timed. The source of the problem might be found in cutting some of the original script by Stefan Bošković (who made his name on TV both in Montenegro and in Serbia), or maybe in the young actors’ limited experience. Once the emotional stakes for them get higher, Vuletić somehow loses control, and the film becomes a bit chaotic.

On the other hand, that kind of chaos is significant both for the teenagers’ inner lives and for life itself, so, in the end, Otter, whose title comes from a scene depicting Hana’s ultimate cognition that she has to stand up for herself, can pass as more of an introspective movie. Ultimately, it motivates viewers to get introspective as well.

A Film a Week - The Pavilion / Paviljon

 previously published on Cineuropa

Is revolution sometimes necessary, and, if so, when? With his first fiction film in over 20 years, Dino Mustafić (Remake, 2003) seems to be calling for one through the satirical story of some nursing home residents rebelling against the staff and the management who mistreat them. The Pavilion opened the 31st Sarajevo Film Festival.

Set in the aftermath of undisclosed violent events, the film opens with an interrogation of a wheelchair-bound elderly man nicknamed Schumacher (Zijah Sokolović) by a police inspector played by Alban Ukaj in a role not too dissimilar to the one he had in Full Moon. Insisting on telling the truth, rather than helping the investigation, Schumacher reveals the events that led to the tragedy.

The residents of the nursing home nicknamed The Pavilion have been abused by the staff for years – their heating would be turned off in the middle of winter, their pensions and possessions were taken, and they were denied hot water, food and even proper medical care. As the manager (Mirjana Karanović) puts it bluntly, the home constantly needs to cut costs – even basic care costs more than the patients can contribute. Sick and tired of being mistreated, the residents come up with a revolution led by Mojmir (Miralem Zupčević) in the political sense and Angelo (Rade Šerbedžija) in the combat sense.

They take up arms, overthrow the regime and take the staff members hostage. The mayor (Ermin Bravo) must find a solution as quickly as possible, since it is an election year and he has certain business interests in the nursing home. He opts for a peaceful solution while the SWAT team is getting ready to storm the building. Although the residents have most goals in common, which means new management and a dignified life worthy of a human being, the maximalist requests and take-no-prisoners tactics of their leadership pave the way to violence.

Working from a script by famous journalists Viktor Ivančić and Emir Imamović Pirke (based on Ivančić’s novella), Mustafić strives to examine the necessity of revolutionary takeover and change, for better or for worse, as the situation gets untenable. The filmmaker certainly has some interesting ideas, such as subverting the concept of the older generations’ guilt into the new generations abandoning the system of solidarity for selfish, profiteering reasons, but Mustafić somehow gets lost along the way in his attempt to strike a balance between the serious and the comic that at times does not shy away from low blows such as casual racism, gerontophobia and the abundant use of bodily functions for laughs. The use of the communist iconography seems downright naive.

On the technical side, the music by Bojan Zulfikarpašić always feels spot-on, while the camerawork by Almir Đikoli and Mustafa Mustafić is more often shaky, rather than feeling fluid, as intended. The editor Vladimir Gojun manages to save the day, just narrowly, by keeping the running time bearable and the pace high.

However, the trump card of the film should be its ensemble cast of regional thesps. Apart from those mentioned above, we also see Nikša Butijer, Jasna Diklić, Ksenija Pajić, Branka Petrić, Aleksandar Seksan and Meto Jovanovski in his last role. But with such a large number of characters that either function in a collective setting or just as plot devices, they usually do not have enough time or space to shine properly, so they also aim for scoring cheap points with gags and mannerisms. Nevertheless, they remain the strongest selling point of the film, especially in the region, since The Pavilion could hardly travel far.

A Film a Week - Sorella di clausura

 previously published on Cineuropa

If we are to believe an anecdote told by a shady character in Sorella di Clausura, Ivana Mladenović’s newest film, which has just premiered in the main competition of Locarno, the movie’s title is actually the name of an a cappella group consisting of Italian nuns. The odd thing about them is that, unless they are performing, which happens once a year, they live under a strict vow of silence. According to the popular Serbian folk singer Boban (played by the filmmaker’s father, Miodrag Mladenović, whom we saw in his daughter’s previous film, Ivana the Terrible), the same destiny awaits our protagonist, Stela (Katia Pascariu, from Radu Jude’s Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn), but she claims that she cannot sing, because she is tone-deaf, completely missing the point of his metaphor.

Boban might not know, but Stela has a history with him. He was, and still is, her only crush, celebrity or otherwise, and her obsession with him started when she was 12 and she saw him on TV. That crush and obsession are probably the only things that keep Stela afloat in her sad and depressed existence. She is in her thirties, jobless and lives with her extended family in a cramped flat. The year is 2008, and Romania has just got into the EU, just in time to suffer all of the maladies that came with the global economic crisis.

However, Stela remains steadfast in her intention to get close to Boban, or at least to show her family that she might succeed in life against all odds. The road to both goals runs via a pop singer, Vera (Cendana Trifan), who is rumoured to be Boban’s newest fling, and who takes an interest in Stela’s writing, going by the example of her fan letters. The “rivals” soon become friends, and Stela gets a chance to get ahead in life. However, perks such as contact with renowned publisher Felix (Cătălin Dordea) and a ticket to access “high society” often come with bizarre consequences, like moving to different places in Romania, working as a sex-product tester or having to fake a hook-up with a younger Romani witch-doctor, Gabi (Adrian Radu), to please her hosts.

From Mladenović’s films so far, we have learned that we should expect the unexpected, even though they’re rooted in personal experiences of hers and her friends’. This might be the reason why she opens this one with a disclaimer that we are “wrong and possibly paranoid” if we expect to watch a film based on true events, while the end credits reveal that it is actually based on a memoir by Liliana Pelici. So, the events Stela stumbles through might not be true, exactly, but there are enough references to Mladenović’s (and not only hers) previous works to keep the viewer occupied chasing them, albeit not so many as to lose oneself in them. The film might be dedicated to her late friend and collaborator Anca Pop (the character of Vera seems modelled after her, to a certain extent), but there are also echoes of Radu Jude – not just for the fact that Katia Pascariu plays the same, seemingly mousy, but actually resourceful, type of character as in Bad Luck Banging…, but also because of Vanja Kovačević’s editing and the division into chapters that give an order to the idiosyncratic ideas.

According to Ivana Mladenović, Sorella di Clausura is an “empathetic parody of romantic melodramas”. That notion is valid, but the film examines many more things, from the pursuit of happiness, via the mechanics of obsession, to the imperative of success. Whatever it might be, Sorella di Clausura is unmistakably a film by a director with a strong signature.

A Film a Week - Construction Site / Le Chantier

 previously published on Cineuropa

A drone shot of the Parisian skyline opens the documentary Le Chantier, directed by Jean-Stéphane Bron – which has just premiered out of competition at the Locarno Film Festival – before zoning in on a century-old, crumbling building which has already been hollowed out from the inside. The construction vehicles are already there, as are the workers who operate them. Thanks to Adrien Cannepin and Pierre-Louis Clairin’s sound design, the noise they make seems excruciating, but communication between the workers carries on during work and breaks alike.

From the opening shots, we understand that this is a project both large and complex, but it’s only later on that we learn it’s the location for the new headquarters of French company Pathé, which will be composed of a multitude of cinemas on the lower floors, and company and co-working office space on the top floors. Combining legacy materials, like wood and stone, with new ones, such as steel and glass, the building was designed by the legendary architect Renzo Piano, but the chairman of Pathé, Jerôme Seydoux, has the final say over internal architecture. He doesn’t stop with the company offices, he also dictates the furnishing of the theatre halls and facilities, guided by his sense of luxury. The problem is, he’s not very realistic when it comes to practical things, such as economic and political crises coming about in quick succession and driving up prices of materials and labour, the finer details of civil engineering, or customers’ needs and preferences. As a result, other professionals, like architects, construction engineers and skilled and unskilled workers in various departments, have to step in and do their job so that the building is finished on time.

Le Chantier follows the building work from the beginning of (re-)construction to the opening of the site, but what sets it apart from other documentaries along similar lines is the depth and broadness of its scope. Bron opts for an observational style, which is only occasionally interrupted by dreamy inserts of different cinema-going experiences, ranging from the traditional to the more modern, and from the poshest to the most modest, with a strong sense of community spirit. Cinematographer Blaise Harrison executes his role with ease, as does composer Irène Drésel, who takes us on a journey through different genres and moods which always embody the essence of what’s on screen, though never in a vulgar way.

But Bron’s main achievement is how he presents the complexity of the project from a maximum number of viewpoints, from the chief architect’s initial concept and the investor’s ever-changing vision, via the mid-level experts’ struggle to find solutions for concrete challenges, to the workforce ultimately executing their orders. In his directorial approach, Bron is actually quite egalitarian, since no side or position is depicted as more (or less) important than any other. And kudos goes to editor Julie Lena or the film being kept to a reasonable runtime of 94 minutes, with no danger of abbreviating things to the point they become banal.

Ultimately, Le Chantier serves as a reminder of how humans work and of how complex planning and execution of these visions actually are. This applies to film as well as construction, as there’s no shortage of planning and ops management in that department either. We, the audience, who only consume these things, tend to take them for granted.

A Film a Week - Judas' Gospel / Il Vangelo di Giuda

 previously published on Cineuropa

The story of Jesus Christ, his life, times and dying for the sins of the whole of humanity is hardly a new and unfamiliar one. We know it from the gospels in the Bible, from other works of literature, as well as from the movies. With the latter, however, the story has been told from different points of view, yet nobody had yet bothered to tell it from the side of Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed his teacher and messiah.

That was until Giulio Base, renaissance man, doctor of literature, philosophy and theology, actor and filmmaker with tens of credits to his name,  decided to do just that. His second film this year, Judas’ Gospel, just premiered out of competition in Locarno.

Base opens the film with the passion of Christ (Vincenzo Galluzzo), but swiftly shifts his focus to another man who also died that day, Christ’s follower and traitor, Judas (voiced by Giancarlo Giannini), who hanged himself as an act of solidarity and redemption for his deeds. Assuming the role of the narrator, Judas goes back to tell the story from his own point of view.

He, the half-brother of Mary Magdalene, was born in a brothel to a prostitute mother and an unknown father. His first “crime” was his birth, since both his mother and his twin did not survive it. As a boy, he killed the brothel owner who abused him and his sidekick and took over the business of trading people’s bodies. He became a wealthy, unscrupulous man, until his half-sister fell for the teachings of the new prophet. He, too, got interested in them, to the point that he renounced his life and wealth.

However, after that promising first third of the movie, depicting an atmosphere of decadence and debauchery and done with some cheek and sleaze, the story falls back into the tracks of what we already know from cultural history. Although it is now completely told from Judas’ perspective (quite literally so, as his is the only speaking part in the film), viewers will have few new insights into the well known tale. Paradoxically, there is not enough of Judas and his personality in Judas’ Gospel.

Although international stars such as Rupert Everett (playing the role of the priest Caiaphas), Paz Vega (as Mary), John Savage (Joseph) or filmmaker Abel Ferrara (who plays Herod) successfully overcome the challenge of limited means of expression, Base’s approach fails on the whole, revealing itself to be just a schlocky trick. The same goes for the decision never to reveal Judas’ face (always shot from the back, it might as well be the filmmaker himself), and the opposition between our hero and the rest of the characters feels artificially constructed.

As the story and its telling wear off following an encouraging beginning, so does the filmmaking style. The slick camerawork by Giuseppe Riccobene goes into a chaotic hand-held mode, while the music by Checco Pallone moves from a “blasphemous”, hard and heavy sound on the opening credits to stereotypical-sounding ethno music, the generic kind usually employed to suggest a Middle Eastern setting. On the other hand, Judas’ Gospel can find some saving grace in its rich references to works of literature, philosophy, theology and art, woven both into the narrative and the visual fabric of the movie, and in the tight editing by Natascia Di Vitto, which makes it watchable and intriguing. In the end, Judas' Gospel might not be an essential watch, but it showcases both the ambition and the shortcomings of Giulio Base’s approach to an intriguing topic.

A Film a Week - Donkey Days

 previously published on Cineuropa

Family dynamics are always tricky to negotiate, so it should come as no surprise that the relations between family members are often at the centre of the literary and cinematic works. This is certainly the case with Donkey Days, the sophomore feature written and directed by Rosanne Pel, so far best known for her Toronto-premiered debut, Light as Feathers (2018), in which she examined how an abusive relationship between a teenager and his mother can spill over to the outside world. Donkey Days has premiered in the main competition of Locarno.

This time, we have two adult sisters, Anna (Jil Krammer, in her first screen role) and Charlotte (German actress Susanne Wolff, recently glimpsed in Köln ’75), who have always fought for their mother’s attention. The mum, Ines (veteran actress Hildegard Schmahl), is quite a piece of work herself. At first, one might think that she is trying to balance out the dynamics between her daughters, but she actually fuels their rivalry. The question is whether she does so willingly, for the sake of manipulation, or unwittingly, simply by making questionable choices.

The sisters have adopted different coping mechanisms to deal with the mother. While schoolteacher Anna reacts impulsively, through sulking and childish tantrums, Charlotte tries to present herself as a highly organised person. Their tactics, however, take different tolls on their lives, since Anna manages to sabotage the relationship with her partner Noe (Amke Wegner), and Charlotte always comes across as cold and distant. Ines’s advancing age and her secrets, which Anna and Charlotte come to discover, such as a “mystery urn” and her love of donkeys, present new challenges for them and their already troubled relationship.

The structure of the movie, in which the first two-thirds of the running time can be seen as a prolonged exposition, does not make watching Donkey Days a very pleasant experience. However, it places the viewers directly into the minds of the sisters, particularly Anna, and makes them feel the emotional turmoil the two have to grapple with when dealing with their mother. Viewers may also get a bit lost and confused owing to the fact that, at least during the exposition part, the plot might (or might not) be presented chronologically, while the filmmaker also introduces a kind of “alternative reality” where the sisters meet their mother as a young person of about their age. The sense of unnerving disorientation is further underlined by the use of unsteady, handheld camerawork with numerous horizontal pans by cinematographer Aafke Beernink as well as by Xander Nijsten’s seemingly rough editing, while the atonal music score by Ella van der Woude also plays a part.

The actresses and their work are among the chief saving graces of the movie. Hildegard Schmahl has a strong, commanding screen presence, while the chemistry between Susanne Wolff and Jil Krammer is palpable. The latter is also paired well with another non-professional, Amke Wegner, and thanks to Rosanne Pel’s work with them, their lack of formal experience never shows. As a bonus, Carla Juri shines in a few flashbacks as the young Ines.

In the end, Donkey Days is less about the story and making some kind of point than it is about the vibe. This kind of approach could be classed as risky, but it is obvious that this time, it is a deliberate choice, and it consequently bears a strong auteur-driven hallmark.

A Film a Week - Nova '78

 previously published on Cineuropa

The Nova Convention was a three-day event that took place from 30 November-2 December 1978 in New York. It was produced by writer and book editor James Grauerholz, poet and performer John Giorno, and literary critic and cultural theorist Sylvère Lotringer in order to celebrate writer William S Burroughs, and his ideas, influence and legacy. Late filmmaker Howard Brookner (1954-1989) and his core crew documented the whole event, but the material was considered lost until it was unearthed in 2012. The largely previously unseen material was progressively restored up until 2024, and Howard’s nephew Aaron Brookner and his Portuguese colleague Rodrigo Areias composed a documentary called Nova ’78 out of it, which has now premiered at the 2025 edition of Locarno, out of competition.

While most of the previous paragraph could be read in the opening title cards of Nova ’78, there is more of a backstory here that did not end up in Brookner and Areias’ documentary. Maybe the reason for this is the fact that some of the material was also used for the 2014 updated version of Howard Brookner’s Borroughs (1983), and that Aaron Brookner explained the life and the work of his uncle, and his ties to him, in his 2016 documentary Uncle Howard. For those acquainted with those two docs, it should not come as a surprise that Tom DiCillo and Jim Jarmusch were signed up as the cinematographer and the sound recordist, respectively, on Nova ’78, as they were part of the original Burroughs crew.

Nova ‘78 is pretty much focused on the very event, from the last backstage arrangements the day before the convention to numerous panel discussions, dance, theatrical and musical performances, readings, and expressions of gratitude for the inspiration that Burroughs provided to all of them. Regarding the speakers and performers, the list is long and varied: Philip Glass, John Cage, Laurie Anderson, Patti Smith, Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg, Brion Gysin and many more. Some of the initially announced guests did not appear, like Susan Sontag and Keith Richards, but those who did surprised many with their openhearted confessions. For instance, Frank Zappa, who was never much of a reader, deeply admired Burroughs for writing and publishing Naked Lunch. The rest of the conversations revolved around the future and the fear of it for reasons that still stand today, like wars, the environment and the persecution of minorities, while one conversation between Burroughs and Ginsberg on the topic of the turmoil in Iran just before the revolution sounds prophetic from such a distance.

Howard Brookner set the style somewhere between a fly-on-the-wall kind of observation and a reportage that aims to be as factual as possible, and Aaron Brookner and Rodrigo Areias maintain it for the better part of the film, as they stay at the convention and in its immediate surroundings. However, they both know that they have to relax the atmosphere a little and also show the hero of the story, Burroughs, in some other settings, so they take us away from the convention and into his world of long walks and road trips where every source of inspiration can be turned into a work of art through a process of mental training. The almost abstract imagery is accompanied perfectly by a psychedelic guitar- and synth-heavy soundtrack by Paulo Furtado (aka The Legendary Tigerman), while the precise editing by Aaron Bruckner and Tomás Baltazar keeps the running time of this dense documentary at a pleasant 80 minutes.

The convention it portrays proved to be a uniquely influential event. As a documentary, Nova ‘78 deserves the same outcome.

A Film a Week - Fantasy

 previously published on Cineuropa

Right from the opening shots of Fantasy, the feature debut by Slovenian musician and filmmaker Kukla, premiering in Locarno’s Filmmakers of the Present competition, the first association will become very apparent: French filmmaker Céline Sciamma and her earlier to mid-career works like Tomboy and Girlhood. It might not be a deliberate reference, but rather a product of the simple fact that coming of age takes longer than it used to and that it is never easy, especially for young women in a world structured to follow certain patriarchal traditions. The resemblance between the Parisian banlieu and the housing-estate buildings on the outskirts of Ljubljana does not go unnoticed either.

The story follows three “besties” in their early twenties who, at the start, all sport a uniform, tomboy attitude and speak the same local dialect that mixes Slovenian with other southern Slavic languages, but there are some differences between them to be observed. Sina (Mina Milovanović) is into sports, especially boxing, and wants to embark on a career as a coach. Jasna (Mia Skrbinac) is the most ambitious of the gang: she stays quiet and wants to keep the group together, but she also dreams of making something of her life elsewhere. Mihrije (Sarah Al Saleh) seems like the youngest one, and her primary goal is to avoid getting married to a man whom she does not know and who would be chosen by her parents. They are all of foreign ancestry and have to endure both the patriarchal rules of their neighbourhood and the low-key, systemic racism from Slovenian civil servants.

Their individual lives change once they meet a seemingly liberated, even slightly unhinged, transgender woman named Fantasy (Alina Juhart), to whom they all react differently. Mihrije falls for her hard – so hard that she even runs away from home to follow her on a trip to North Macedonia, where Fantasy has to introduce herself under her male given name, Filip. While the two are away, Sina falls for her married coach, Boris (Denis Porčič), and starts exploring her more feminine side, and Jasna decides to leave her passive-aggressive mother (Silvija Jovanović) behind and find work abroad. Can their friendship withstand such temptations?

Kukla’s screenwriting might seem classical, so a certain drop in tempo occurs in the second act, as expected, but she manages to accomplish the primary task she gave herself: she effectively implants us in the minds of young women on the brink of adulthood, creating a sense of empathy for the troubles her characters are dealing with, and she does so with style.

The slight movements in Lazar Bogdanović’s camerawork, paired with Lukas Miheljak’s rhythmic editing, Relja Čupić’s moody electronic score and Julij Zornik’s perfectly calibrated sound design, create a unique, dream-like atmosphere. Kukla’s directing style, especially when introducing lengthy sequences that resemble music videos of a peculiar genre (vocoder-heavy trap
mixed with “turbofolk” from the Balkans), might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but bearing her background in such music in mind, it’s to be expected that the filmmaker would also manage to capture the vibe of this world.

Kukla’s work with the largely non-professional actors is one of Fantasy’s strong points, as they dive deep into their characters and convey their every state and emotion compellingly and with conviction. This should not come as a surprise, since Kukla already “tested” them all in her award-winning short Sisters (2020). But with Fantasy, she manages to achieve a rare feat: to expand a short movie into an even more impressive feature.

A Film a Week - The Lost Dream Team / Izgubljeni Dream Team

 previously published on Cineuropa

Sports are often the source of national pride and unity: the whole nation tends to come together and stay behind an individual or a national team. But in the former Yugoslavia and the countries that succeeded it, fandom for an individual sportsperson or a national team is raised to the level of mythic adoration. National sports-powered “mythos” sometimes even gets epic proportions in an “alternative history” imagination. Some say that the collapse of Yugoslavia became possible after the unfortunate loss of the football national team against Argentina in the quarter-finals of the 1990 World Cup in Italy. Others harbour a conspiracy theory that the Americans were so frustrated with their college basketball players losing to Yugoslav teams that they forced the International Olympic Committee to change the rules regarding the professionals competing and created their own dream team of the best NBA players.

After a fantastic career in the short format crowned with the 2015 EFA award for Picnic and his fiction-feature debut Mater (2019), Croatian filmmaker Jure Pavlović has decided to try a new format – the feature-length documentary combining sports and the political drama of the Yugoslav basketball national team’s last hurrah at the European Championships in Rome in 1991. The premiere of The Lost Dream Team closed the 72nd edition of the Pula Film Festival. Judging by these events’ place in the collective memory all over the West Balkans, and by the rather universal angle Pavlović takes to accommodate international audiences, the film should have a healthy festival run, a theatrical release in several countries, and a prolonged exposure on television afterwards.

Throughout the 1980s, the Yugoslav men’s basketball national team became a powerhouse at continental and world championships, as well as at the Olympics, with players like Dražen Petrović, Vlade Divac, Toni Kukoč, Dino Rađa, Saša Đorđević, Predrag Danilović amongst others. The match in the finals of the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona never took place because Yugoslavia ceased to exist a year before, and the dissolution was followed by a bloody war. It was in fact during the very week of the European basketball championship in Rome that Slovenia and Croatia seceded from Yugoslavia and the short-lasting war in Slovenia broke out. After winning the championship, the national representatives did not have a country to return to.

Jure Pavlović interviews all the players from the national team as well as their head coach Dušan Duda Ivković and the team manager, but the focal point is Jurij Zdovc, the only Slovenian on the team, who was called by the government of his “new country” to leave the national team (and his comrades and friends) because of the Yugoslav aggression on Slovenia. Zdovc was also the focal point of a newspaper article written by Croatian journalist and novelist Boris Dežulović that actually inspired Pavlović to take a dive into the topic and the memory from his own childhood.

The result is a finely made classical documentary mixing sports and politics, to cathartic effect for the audience that remembers the events, and creating curiosity in younger spectators. Pavlović's approach, combining national television and private archives as well as newly shot interviews with the players and staff members, functions well thanks to the slickness in Dario Hacek’s camerawork, Julij Zornik’s masterful sound design and Ivan Vasić’s editing which turns the talking heads mode into something more artistic. The Lost Dream Team might seem like a simple piece of nostalgia, but it is also a deeply moving piece of cinema.

A Film a Week - The Mountain Won't Move / Gora se ne bo premaknila

 previously published on Cineuropa

Usually, documentary projects spend more time in development and production than fiction ones do. Having two projects premiering some two months apart at reputable festivals is an oddity which has happened to Slovenian filmmaker Petra Seliškar this year. After the premiere of her mid-length effort My Summer Holiday at FIPADOC in January, the filmmaker now presents her feature-length work The Mountain Won’t Move at Visions du Réel. It is no coincidence, though, because the two films share the same subjects, location and topic.

Seliškar takes us up into the Šar Mountains, where three brothers, Zekir, Zarif and Zani spend several months a year looking after their family’s flock of hundreds of sheep and their dozens of cows. The youngest, Zani, stays in the lower hut with the cows, while Zekir and Zarif venture to the upper “bachilo” stone-and-wood house with the sheep. During the summer, their younger brothers join them to learn the trade and provide help. Their life is free from the burdens of modernity, but also quite dangerous owing to the harsh weather and even harsher beasts. Luckily, they have a large number of shepherd dogs to protect them and keep them company. Zekir serves as the leader of the brothers and the teacher, preparing them to continue the centuries-old tradition, but as Zarif grows, he expresses an interest in trying out a different, more modern way of life. Zekir is also at a crossroads, as he is getting too old to spend such an amount of time up in the mountains with the sheep, while he also misses his favourite dog, Belichka, who is being held by a shady breeder.

The filmmaker is less interested in telling a story here (the mid-length is more structured to serve this purpose) than she is in observing the relations between the brothers, and those between them and the breathtaking nature that surrounds them. And in such isolation (some of the shooting locations are at an altitude of over 2,400 metres), where the only structure comes in the form of daily routines, the young men’s minds tend to go into overdrive. The occasional bouts of narration that Seliškar applies are both matter-of-fact and poetic, so they better succeed in painting a picture of the mental states, rather than in driving the story, which is also the filmmaker’s intention.

Technically, The Mountain Won’t Move is a maverick work. The filming took place over several weeks-long spans during a period of five years, and the locations are not exactly accessible, so the image- and sound-recording crews had to follow the subjects around during their mundane, repetitive work for days on end over the harsh terrain, taking care not to step into the others’ line of sight and not to disturb the harmony between the animals. The end result is nothing short of amazing on a sensory level. From cinematographer Brand Ferro’s point of view, we can see both the beauty and the danger of the place in bright, summery colours and crisp, digital visuals. This beauty and danger are further enhanced through Vladimir Rakić’s sound design, in which we can make out individual noises over the overall natural cacophony, while the austere use of Iztok Koren’s ethno-sounding music is also a nice touch.

For sure, there are parallels to be drawn with other documentaries about people in nature and people on the fringes of society, as Seliškar is not trying to redefine these sub-genres. However, The Mountain Won’t Move is a deeply personal work and a frank, in-depth observation of an endangered way of life.