Petar Krelja
Petar Krelja
was born in Štip, Macedonia, on June 24, 1940. He is one
of the leading Croatian documentary film-makers, an acclaimed
film critic from the generation of so-called Hitchcock followers
(promoters of authorial criticism in this region), a long
time film programmer on the Channel 1 of the Croatian Radio
(former Radio-Zagreb). He graduated world literature from
the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb and he has been engaged
in film since the end of the ‘60s.
In the ‘70s he became
known as an author of emotionally engaged documentaries on
social outsiders, particularly children and young people
(for instance Return, 1975; Admission Post,
1977), and he also became prominent with his work dealing
with extraordinary social-psychological phenomena (for instance Bids
Under the Number..., 1969; Witches, 1971) as
well as with his socially critical titles (Recital,
1972; Splendid
Isolation, 1973). Confronting the consequences of the
war in Croatia in the ‘90s he frequently dealt with the theme
of war refuges and war victims (for instance Zoran Šipuš
and His Jasna, 1992; Suzana’s Smile, 1993),
and this was the subject of his middle-length documentary
omnibus Croatian
Triptych (1993, he directed two pieces, while the third
was directed by Edi Mudronja); particularly valuable is his
documentary on naïve painter Kovačica /Ljubica’s
Gift (1991).
Among his feature films the most prominent
is Train Southward (1981), a comedy about the life
of inhabitants of Novi Zagreb drawing on the tradition of
Krešo Golik, the filmmaker to whom he dedicated a monographic
book Golik(1997) both as the editor and the author
of the core text.
FILMOGRAPHY
Feature films:
- Ispod Crte / Below the
Line (2003);
- Stela (1990);
- Vlakom prema jugu / Train Towards South (1981);
- Godišnja
doba /The Seasons (1979); Povratak / Return (1979)
Documentary films:
- My Neighbour Tanja (2006);
- The Marathon
Man (2005);
- The Burned Sun (2002);
- The
American Dream (1998);
- My Brother Ante (1998);
- Ana and
Josip in the Town of Emperors (1995);
- Croatian
Triptych ( i. Ana and Her Brothers, ii. At the
Railway Siding)(1993);
- The Maize Route (1993);
- Suzana’s
Smile (1993);
- Zoran
Šipoš and his Jasna (1992);
- Working Week (1978);
- Play
Time(1977);
- Care-giver (1976);
- Splendid
isolation (1973);
- Vigilance Song (1971);
- Bids Under
the Number… (1969)