Apart from the competition program of high school films, we have prepared a rich evening program at the best cinema locations: the banks of the Korana, Mrežnica, Dobra and Kupa rivers. Join us each evening at a different river! Except in Karlovac (Korana), this year we are heading to Duga Resa (Mrežnica), and we will be discovering old forts of the Karlovac County - the Novigrad na Dobri castle and the Ozalj castle (Kupa).
Tuesday, 12 September, the Korana River
“A Brief Excursion” + 4head
The winner of the Pula Film Festival, the fiction-documentary film by Igor Bezinović is coming to Karlovac on the first festival evening. “A Brief Excursion” is based on motives from the Antun Šoljan novel of the same name. “I guess I was most attracted by the motif of wandering through Istria. As I have been wandering through Istria for the last fifteen years, by car, by bike and on foot, I recognized many scenes in the novel that were intimately close to me. Apart from that, I liked how Šoljan balanced the every day life, existentialism and surrealism, as well as the simplicity of the novel structure. I read the novel for the first time a long time ago, and I remember I automatically experienced it as a series of film images. This picaresque form seemed to be a nice framework I could use to input documentary elements from my own life”, said director Bezinović in one of his interviews.
A Brief Excursion
This is a documentary and fiction film hybrid that follows Stola, a young man in his late twenties, who spends the summer in Istria partying at festivals. One day he meets an acquaintance of his, Roko, who persuades Stola and some others to join him in searching for a nearby monastery with medieval frescoes. But after their bus breaks down, and they get lost along the way, their brief excursion will grow into an allegorical journey into the unknown.
Director: Igor Bezinović
Screenplay: Igor Bezinović, Ante Zlatko Stolica
Cinematography: Danko Vučinović
Editor: Hrvoslava Brkušić, Miro Manojlović
Sound design: Martin Semenčić
Music: Hrvoje Nikšić
Starring: Ante Zlatko Stolica, Mladen Vujčić, Željko Beljan, Iva Ivšić, Marko Aksentijević, Martina Burulic, Josip Visković
Executive producer: Tena Gojić
Production: Studio Pangolin
Mingling continues after the film at the Ziggy bar with the 4head band from Samobor and Zagreb, whose frontgirl is also active in the film world - camera operator and director Dinka Radonić. 4head crushes it with untypical hard/heavy/rock/ska covers of MTV and domestic pop hits.
Wednesday, 13 September, the Mrežnica River
“When the Day Had No Name”
A Macedonian success at the Berlin Film Festival, it speaks about the state of society today through the mysterious death of four teenagers. Lead actors, Leon and Haris, are former FRFF participants and Hanis is the last year’s winner in the documentary film category.
When the Day Had No Name
Macedonian director Teona Strugar Mitevska uses a real-life crime, the unsolved murder of four teenagers, as a jumping-off point to explore the entrenched machismo, aggression and cultural tensions which blight her country. As such, this is a gruelling and confrontational watch which bluntly makes the point that Macedonia’s hopes for the future can’t coexist with a masculinity which is rooted in the past. The bleak subject matter, captured with an unflinching lens by Agnes Godard, makes this a tough prospect, even within the Balkan region. This is a picture which will play best to sophisticated festival audiences which may appreciate the director’s naturalistic approach and the unvarnished honesty of her portrait of Macedonian teens.
Director: Teona Strugar Mitevska
Producer: Labina Mitevska
Screenplay: Teona Strugar Mitevska, Elma Tataragić
Cinematography: Agnes Godard
Editor: Stefan Stanbenow, Sophie Vercruysse
Production design: Vuk Mitevski
Music: Jean Paul Dessy
Starring: Leon Ristov, Hanis Bagashov, Stefan Kitanovic, Dragan Mishevski, Ivan Vrtev Soptrajanov, Igorco Postolov, Perunika Kiselički, Ines Hodic, Erina Poplavska, Labina Mitevska
Thursday, 14 September, the Dobra River
“The Trampoline”
The first feature film by Katarina Zrinka Matijević is definitely not a romance film, but it is a film about love. It is a film about unconditional parental love that often becomes conditional, a film about scars that stay with us long after the bruises fade. The crew lead by the director will attend the screening of this real woman’s film.
The Trampoline
When running away from her mother, the seven-year-old Lina meets teenager Nika and the forty-year-old Nikolina. They seem to mirror Lina’s possible future. By sharing the same destiny, three heroines change their lives and uncover a secret about painful rifts within their own families.
Director: Katarina Zrinka Matijević
Screenplay: Katarina Zrinka Matijević, Pavlica Bajsić, Ivan Salaj
Cinematography: Vjeran Hrpka
Editor: Ana Štulina
Sound design: Ivan Zelić
Music: Šumovi protiv valova
Costume design: Katarina Zaninović
Production design: Mario Ivezić
Starring: Franka Mikolaci, Tena Nemet Brankov, Marija Tadić, Lana Barić, Frano Mašković, Asja Jovanović, Nina Violić, Igor Kovač, Enes Vejzović
Producer: Ivan Maloča
Production: Interfilm
Friday, 15 September, the Kupa River
“A Two Way Mirror” + Muzika za dobar đir
The director of this award winning feature documentary was again Katarina Zrinka Matijević, and it’s interesting that she worked on both films at the same time. This film is her personal search for inner peace shown by her journey through Lika, the remote homeland of her ancestors. Lika is full of tunnels, and after each dark tunnel full of secrets, fears and darkness (shown with organic, experimental images), a new season awakes. The experience is completed with landscapes, the local people, a plethora of sounds and the voice-over that leads us. While the director records fascinatingly magnetic, but morbidly rough scenes of Lika, Lika itself designates the director who again lives through her own experiences and the experiences of her ancestors in order to find the way to accept her illness - epilepsy, and to overcome four miscarriages and the loss of love, so she could find herself again.
A Two Way Mirror
Director: Katarina Zrinka Matijević
Screenplay: Katarina Zrinka Matijević
Cinematography: Vjeran Hrpka
Editor: Ana Štulina
Sound design: Ivan Zelić, Vesna Biljan Pušić
Music: Šumovi protiv valova
Producers: Nenad Puhovski, Tamara Babun
Production: Factum
The evening continues with a Film quiz and later mingling in the Ziggy bar with Muzika za dobar đir. The mysterious name hides Dunja Bovan, a producer for whom the Youth Film Festival and the Four River Film Festival were one of the first “business” experiences. Around Karlovac she is also known as the Cashier that wants to go to the seaside.