THE COMPETITIONS, AN OUT-OF-COMPETITION SCREENING, PANELS, AND BOOK PRESENTATIONS
The second-to-last day of this 36th edition kicks off at 11:00 AM at the ANTICO CAFFÈ SAN MARCO with the Q&A MEETINGS WITH AUTHORS AND FESTIVAL GUESTS.
The guests of the day will include Dimitris Nakos (director of Meat), Saulė Bliuvaitė (director of Toxic), Sonja Prosenc (director of Family Therapy), Laila Pakalnina (director of Termini), Maciej J. Drygas (director of Trains), and Nanna Frank Møller and Zlatko Pranjić (directors of The Sky Above Zenica).
We’d also like to draw attention to an afternoon event at 6:00 PM at ANTICO CAFFÈ SAN MARCO with the presentation of the book THE BELGRADE TRIO by Goran Marković, featuring Sergio M. Grmek Germani, curated by Bottega Errante Edizioni.
It is 1948 when socialist Yugoslavia breaks ties with the USSR, and all dissidents—real or suspected—are sent to the perfect prison: the island of Goli Otok. The wandering writer Lawrence Durrell, future author of the sophisticated Alexandria Quartet, makes ends meet as a spy for the British Embassy in Belgrade, only to uncover what he was never meant to.
GORAN MARKOVIĆ (Belgrade, 1946) is one of the most important directors of Serbian and former Yugoslav cinema. Also active as a playwright and screenwriter, he has received a great deal of international recognition and, in 2012, was awarded the title of Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters of the French Republic. Author of three novels, with The Belgrade Trio, he was shortlisted for the 2018 NIN Award for the best novel of the year in Serbian. He will be joined by Sergio M. Grmek Germani, a Balkan cinema expert and contributor to Il Manifesto, Il Piccolo, Primorski Dnevnik, and film journals like La Cosa Vista (which he founded), Filmcritica, and FilmTv.
Event in Italian and Serbian with translation provided by Maja Vranjes, in collaboration with the Serbian Youth Cultural Association.
POLITEAMA ROSSETTI
As for the screenings at POLITEAMA ROSSETTI, we start at 2:00 PM with an Off the Beaten… Screens selection: ZA DANAS TOLIKO by Marko Đorđević (That’s It for Today, SRB – BiH, 2024, col., 105’). By baking his favorite dessert – coconut cubes – the members of a family manage to lure their eldest brother back home. Time seems to cease to exist, and a tale of happy people begins to unfold. Seemingly ordinary summer days become extraordinary. Deeply in love with life, the film’s protagonists elevate reality above the ground, dispersing dark clouds with their joyous spirit. That’s It for Today premiered at the FEST in Belgrade in 2024,
and was then presented at the Mostra de Valencia in Spain and the Zagreb Film Festival.
At 4:00 PM, we move on to the third selection of the short film competition: COMPILATION 3.
At 6:00 PM, we return to the feature film competition with FEKETE PONT by Bálint Szimler (Lesson Learned, H, 2024, col., 119’). Young teacher Juci attempts to challenge the outdated methods in her school, while new student Palkó, who recently relocated from abroad, struggles to adapt to the demanding educational system. Their personal stories offer insight into an oppressive system, reflecting the broader Hungarian society. The film premiered at the 2024 Locarno Film Festival, in the “Cineasti del presente” section, winning the Leopard for Best Actress and a Special Mention.
At 8:15 PM, in the same section, we present TREI KILOMETRI PÂNA LA CAPATUL LUMII by Emanuel Pârvu (Three Kilometres to the End of the World, RO, 2024, col., 105’). Adi (17) is spending the summer in his home village in the Danube Delta. One night he is brutally attacked on the street, and the next day his world is turned upside-down. His parents no longer look at him as they did, and the seeming tranquillity of the village starts to crack. The film premiered in competition at Cannes 2024 and was then presented at the Sarajevo FF, where it won Best Film.
At 10:00 PM, the day ends with the out-of-competition feature film ANUL NOU CARE N-A FOST by Bogdan Mureşanu (The New Year That Never Came, RO – SRB, 2024, col., 138’). On the 20th of December, 1989, Romania stands on the brink of revolution. The streets are alive with demonstrations, students mock the regime through art, and New Year’s shows glorify Ceauşescu. Yet, in the discomfort of their unheated homes, families grapple with personal conflicts and the omnipresent Secret Police. Six seemingly disconnected lives intersect in unexpected ways. As tensions reach boiling point, an explosive moment unites them, culminating in the dramatic fall of Ceauşescu and the communist regime. Best Film in the “Orizzonti” section at the latest Venice Film Festival.
CINEMA AMBASCIATORI
At 11:00 AM, we present a selection of ROMANIAN EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA that continues at 2:00 PM, with OPT ILUSTRATE DIN LUMEA IDEALĂ by Radu Jude and Christian
Ferencz-Flatz (Eight Postcards from Utopia, RO, 2024, col. & b-w., 71’). Eight Postcards from Utopia is a found-footage documentary assembled exclusively out of post-socialist Romanian advertisements. Drawing from the debris of Romania’s long transition period, the film speaks about love and death, the human body and its fragility, the natural and the supernatural, and of course, socialism and capitalism. Bouncing between found poetry and an outdated encyclopedia, between trash art and Summa Theologiae, Eight Postcards from Utopia sees Radu Jude teaming up with philosopher Christian Ferencz-Flatz. After its premiere at the Locarno Film Festival in 2024, the film was presented at many international festivals, including DocLisboa, Viennale, Jihlava, and IDFA.
The film will be followed by SLEEP#2 by Radu Jude (RO, 2024, col., 62’). A fallen flower returning to the branch? It was a butterfly. (Moritake) A tribute to Andy Warhol and his Sleep, Radu Jude’s “desktop documentary” premiered out of competition at the Locarno Film Festival in 2024.
At 4:30 PM, the documentary competition presents W ZAWIESZENIU by Alina Maksimenko (In Limbo, PL, 2024, col., 71’). Russia’s invasion of Ukraine finds Alina in Irpin, near Kyiv. She is alone, with her leg in a cast after a recent surgery. She manages to escape with her cat from a bombed and cut-off city in one of the last evacuation groups. She reaches a cottage in a nearby village where her parents are stuck. For the first weeks, they try to live normally. Her mother teaches online courses, her father takes care of his cats and the animals in the neighborhood, and Alina records current events with her camera. However, the front is getting closer and closer, and they will have to make a decision – to stay or to run away?
At 6:00 PM, from the same section, we have LAPILLI by Paula Ďurinová (SK – DE, 2024, col., 65’). From the sea, through dark caverns, to volcanic deserts, Lapilli is a personal reckoning that dives deep into hard matter. Traversing through rocky landscapes, director Paula Ďurinová deals with the sudden loss of her grandparents. An unexpected disappearance uncovers a new horizon. Phases of grief unfold in this emerging ecosystem, offering a perspective full of empathy for minerals and life that is no more.
At 8:00 PM, the Corso Salani Award presents CHARLOTTE, EINE VON UNS by Rolando Colla (Charlotte, One of Us, CH-I, 2024, col., 117’). Charlotte (42) lives together with her father in an isolated place in Trentino, but she lives in a world of her own. She is mentally impaired. When her father is brought to the hospital for a heart attack, Charlotte’s brother Leo (32) returns to the village after ten years. He learns that his sister wants to leave and asks her to go to Switzerland with him. This marks the beginning of a new chapter in the life of Charlotte, who has never traveled before.
At 10:00 PM, we’ll conclude with the out-of-competition documentary THROUGH THE GRAVES THE WIND IS BLOWING by Travis Wilkerson (USA, 2024, col. & b-w., 84’). If there is anyone who embodies the current state of life in Croatia, it is the police detective Ivan Perić. The son of a fisherman, he became a detective as a way of avoiding working in the only prospering industry of present-day Croatia – tourism. Now his life is consumed by trying to solve a series of essentially unsolvable murders of tourists. Because the tourists are so widely despised, no one will help Ivan. Evidence disappears into the labyrinth of bureaucracy. He is humiliated in public and online. In the local press, his boss even labels him an “uhljeb”, the Croatian slur for a “lazy bureaucratic parasite”. All of this takes place in the city of Split, where the breakup of Yugoslavia has left its mark. Between documentary and fiction, the film is a tribute to the cinema of the Yugoslav Black Wave.
