The screening of the first series of shorts falling under the Europe in Short Section was followed by a Q&A at the Kinodvor Cinema. Hosts Peter Cerovšek and Matevž Jerman from the Society for Short Film Promotion Kraken chatted with the film crew of Into the Blue, a Croatian-Slovenian co-production. One of the producers, Zoran Dževerdanović, explained that he had met the director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović at Cannes, and that the film was the first short-film coproduction co-financed by the Slovenian Film Fund. Although a 2017 production, the film has already enjoyed notable success – winning numerous awards, including prizes at the Berlin, Sarajevo and Oberhausen film festivals. Dževerdanović greeted the viewers also on behalf of the director who was unable to attend; Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović is currently shooting her first full-length film in Jerusalem. Other film crew members that shared their experiences with the shooting were underwater photography assistant Marko Kovačević, make-up artist Anita Fercak, composer Ivan Marinovič, sound designer Jurij Zornik, sound engineer Igor Iskra and production coordinator Nina Robnik.
On 13 November, the Ljubljana Film Festival audience had the opportunity to meet the director of [...] Craving for Narrative, a visual and multimedia artist Max Grau. In terms of form, [...] Craving for Narrative is based on a famous scene from Grease, and thematically addresses diverse social issues, from the ubiquity of narrative to different strategies of reflection on nostalgia. The film started with the artist’s fascination for the first verse of a song from Grease; Grau kept replaying that loop, really enjoying that first verse and the vocal idiosyncrasies of John Travolta, but disliking the subsequent refrain. Grau knew that not everyone would enjoy the uncompromising repetitiveness of the short scene and that it needed to be enhanced by adding the text. Cerovšek asked the artist about his attitude to nostalgia – presumably one of modern art’s mortal enemies that nevertheless features heavily in Grau’s film. Grau replied that it was complicated to advocate any aspect of nostalgia without sounding reactionary – he nevertheless explained that to him nostalgia represented a sort of bodily experience.
Written by Andraž Jež
Photo Iztok Dimc