Saturday | 26 July 2014

61st Pula Film Festival Awards

61st Pula Film Festival Awards

61^st Pula Film Festival Competition Programme:

CROATIAN PROGRAMME
Croatian Film
Number 55, dir. Kristijan Milić, Happy Endings, dir. Darko Šuvak, The Reaper, dir. Zvonimir Jurić, The Bridge at the End of the World, dir. Branko Ištvančić, The Brave Adventures of a Little Shoemaker, dir. Silvije Petranović, Walk the Dog, dir. Filip Peruzović, The Wind Blows, dir. Zdravko Mustać, Zagreb Cappuccino, dir. Vanja Sviličić

Croatian Minority Co-Production
Velvet Terrorists, dir. Pavol Pekarčik, Ivan Ostrochovsky and Peter Kerekes, Monument to Michael Jackson, dir. Darko Lungov

CROATIAN PROGRAMME – SHORT-LENGTH FILM
Six Half Past Six, dir. Dalija Dozet, Alke, dir. Milan Rukavina, Miroslav Kosanović, The Clean-Up, dir. Jasna Nanut, So Not You, dir. Ivan Sikavica, The Chicken, dir. Una Gunjak, Boxed, dir. Nebojša Sljepčević, Separation, dir. Nina Violić, President Nixon’s Present, dir. Igor Šeregi, Next to Me, dir. Marta Prus, Thresholds, dir. Dijana Mlađenović, By Chance, dir. Tanja Golić, Together, dir. Daniel Kušan

INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMME – FEATURE-LENGTH FILM
Concrete Night, dir. Pirjo Honkasalo, Miracle dir. Juraj Lehotsky, Ilo Ilo, dir. Anthony Chen, The Japanese Dog, dir. Tudor Cristian Jurgiu, Jimmy’s Hall, dir. Ken Loach, Amour Fou, dir. Jessica Hausner, The Mafia Only Kills in Summer, red Pif (Pierfrancesco Diliberto), Bridges of Sarajevo a group of authors (Aida Begić, Leonardo di Costanzo, Jean-Luc Godard, Kamen Kalev, Isild Le Besco, Sergey Loznitsa, Vincenzo Marra, Ursula Meier, Vladimir Perisic, Cristi Puiu, Marc Recha, Angela Schanelec, Teresa Villaverde), The Invisible Woman dir. Ralph Fiennes, Alienation, dir. Milko Lazarov, Field of Dogs dir. Lech Majewski, Upstream Color, dir. Shane Carruth, Class Enemy, dir. Rok Biček, Free Fall, dir. György Pálfi, Tom at the Farm, dir. Xavier Dolan, Le Week-End, dir. Roger Michell,Love Eternal ljubav, dir. Brendan Muldowney

INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMME – SHORT-LENGTH FILM
Letter, dir. Sergei Loznitsa, Death of a Shadow, dir. Tom Van Avermaet, Morning, dir. Cathy Brady, A Story for the Modlins, dir. Sergio Oksman, The Waves, dir. Miguel Fonseca, Mystery, dir. Chema García Ibarra, Though I Know the River is Dry, dir. Omar Robert Hamilton, Sunday 3, dir. Jochen Kuhn, Winter, dir. Cristina Picchi, Nuclear Waste, dir. Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy, Orbit Ever After, dir. Jamie Stone, Cut, dir. Christoph Girardet & Matthias Müller, Houses With Small Windows, dir. Bülent Öztürk, Butter Lamp, dir. Hu Wei

DIZALICA PROGRAMME
Galore, dir. Rhys Graham, We are the Best!, dir. Lukas Moodysson, For No Eyes Only, dir. Tali Barde, Sitting Next to Zoe, dir. Ivana Lalović, Bitch Hug, dir. Andreas Ohman

PULICA PROGRAM – FEATURE-LENGTH PROGRAMME
Casper and Emma’s Winter Holidays, dir. Arne Lindtner Næss, The Kid, dir. Charles Chaplin, Moon Man, dir. Stephan Schesch i Sarah Clara Weber, My Mummy is in America and She Met Buffalo Bill, dir. Marc Boreal, Thibaut Chatel, Natural Sciences, dir. Matías Lucchesi,

PULICA PROGRAM – SHORT-LENGTH PROGRAMME
Spot and Splodge do Earstanding, dir. Lotta i Uzi Geffenblad, Animal Friends, dir. Eva Lindstrom, The Little Hedgehog, dir. Marjorie Caup, Carrots Jam, dir. Anne Viel, Rabbit and Deer, dir. Peter Vacz

1. BEST FILM – DIZALICA PROGRAMME
Voting for the Dizalica Programme films, the audience has granted:
- a Best Film Diploma to the film For No Eyes Only by Tali Barde

2. BEST FILM –PULICA PROGRAMME
Voting for the Pulica Programme, the audience has granted:
- a Best Feature Film Diploma to the feature film Casper and Emma’s Winter Holidays by Arne Lindtner Naess
- a Best Short Film Diploma to the film Rabbit and Deer by Peter Vacz

3. BEST SHORT FILM – CROATIAN PROGRAMME
The Young Cinephiles Jury comprising Mihaela Cenkovčan, Matija Drniković, Nika Petković, Mateja Posedi, Nada Savić, Sabina Softić, Niko Sučić, Filip Zadro has granted:
- a Best Short Film Diploma from the Croatian Programme to director Ivan Sikavica for the film So Not You

4. AWARDS BY THE INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMME JURY

Jury members: Leo Barraclough film critic, Fridrik Thor Fridriksson director, producer, actor, Stanislav Tomić, director

A Golden Arena for Best Feature Film has been granted to the film Concrete Night by Pirjo Honkasalo,

‘For successfully creating a unique atmosphere in a poetic and visually impressive manner.’

and a special mention to the film Amour Fou by Jessica Hausner for presenting the world in the time of social changes with a special combination of tragic and comic elements.

A Golden Arena for Best Short Film has been granted to the film Butter Lamp by Hu Wei
‘For talking important and serious topics with a warm, humane and witty approach’

5. AWARD GRANTED BY THE CROATIAN FILM CRITICS’ ASSOCIATION
OKTAVIJAN Award has been granted to the film The Reaper by Zvonimir Jurić, with an average score of 3.85

GOLDEN GATE OF PULA AUDIENCE AWARD
Voting for the National Programme screened in the Arena, the audience has granted the Golden Gate of Pula Audience Award to the film The Brave Adventures of a Little Shoemaker by Silvije Petranović with an average score of 4.68.

The Award is supported by Festival’s partner Hrvatski Telekom.

1. The Brave Adventures of a Little Shoemaker – 4.68
2. Number 55 – 4.61
3. Monument to Michael Jackson – 4.52
4. The Bridge at the End of the World – 4.37
5. Happy Endings – 3.70
6. Zagreb Cappuccino –  3.67
7. The Reaper – 3.40
8. Velvet Terrorists – 2.69

6. AWARDS GRANTED BY THE JURY OF THE CROATIAN PROGRAMME
AWARDS GRANTED BY THE JURY OF THE CROATIAN COMPETITION PROGRAMME

Jury members: Amra Bakšić Čamo producer, Nataša Dorčić actress, Ivana Fumić editor, Nick Holdsworth film critic, Antonio Nuić director

CROATIAN PROGRAMME – CROATIAN FILM

1. The Breza Award for best debutant is granted to Danko Vučinović for cinematography in the film Zagreb Cappuccino by Vanja Sviličić.
‘For elegant and precise solutions in terms of presenting flat consumerist environment of the protagonist.’

2. A Golden Arena for Best Make-Up is granted to Ana Bulajić Črček for the film Number 55 by Kristijan Milić.
‘For a painfully realistic, discreet and varied make-up of soldiers involved in a guerrilla war.’ 

3. A Golden Arena for Best Sound has not been granted – unanimously.

4. A Golden Arena for Best Special Effects has been granted to Branko Repalust and Kristijan Mršić for the film Number 55 by Kristijan Milić.
‘For a realistic reconstruction of war confusion and agony.’

5. A Golden Arena for Best Costume Design has been granted to Vedrana Rapić for the film Number 55 by Kristijan Milić.
‘For contributing to characterization with a subtle and authentic war uniforms design.’

6. A Golden Arena for Best Art Direction has been granted to Damir Gabelica for the film Number 55 by Kristijan Milić.
‘For brilliant resourcefulness and an authentic performance using very basic scenic design elements.’

7. A Golden Arena for Best Music has been granted to Luka Zima for the film Zagreb Cappuccino by Vanja Sviličić.
‘For the music that significantly contributes to the atmosphere and the emotional picture of the film as a whole.’

8. A Golden Arena for Best Editing has been granted to Veljko Segarić for the film Number 55 by Kristijan Milić.
‘For skilful editing of a high-tension action film.’

9. A Golden Arena for Best Cinematography has been granted to Branko Linta for the film The Reaper by Zvonimir Jurić.
‘For masterly photography of complex night scenes that contributes to the suspense in the film.’ 10. A Golden Arena for Best Actor in a Supporting Role has been granted to Igor Kovač for the role of Josip in the film The Reaper by Zvonimir Jurić.
‘For his excellent portrayal of a young man who makes a hard decision and has to face its consequence.’

11. A Golden Arena for Best Actor in a Leading Role has been granted to Ivo Gregurević for the role of Ivo in the film The Reaper by Zvonimir Jurić.
‘For a suggestive portrayal of a man burdened by a crime from the past and loneliness.’

This award is supported by RIO - Clothes Industry from Rijeka, the leading fashion company in the production of men’s suits, jackets, trousers and coats, with a tradition spanning over 60 years. As a long-standing sponsor of the Festival, it provides clothes to hosts and Festival Board members, and awards this year’s winner of the Golden Arena for Best Actor in a Leading Role.

12. A Golden Arena for Best Actress in a Supporting Role has been granted to Anita Matić Delić for the role of Godmother in Happy Endings by Darko Šuvak.
‘For an energetic presentation of a bitter and neurotic woman pressed by everyday problems.’

13. A Golden Arena for Best Actress in a Leading Role has been granted to Areta Ćurković for the role of Ankica in the film Happy Endings by Darko Šuvak.
‘For an emotional presentation of an ordinary woman forced to take drastic measures in order to solve her personal and existential problems.’

IMAGE HADDAD has been collaborating with the Festival for as many as 14 years and this collaboration has become a tradition which is based on Haddad’s cureless love for film and its belief that business must support culture and art. Apart from providing clothes to board members, IMAGE HADDAD will award this year’s Golden Arena for Best Actress in a Leading Role winner, actress Areta Ćurković.

14. A Golden Arena for Best Screenplay has been granted to Ivan Pavličić for the film Number 55 by Kristijan Milić.
‘For a clear narrative structure and direct characterization of relationships within a group in an extreme situation.’

15. A Golden Arena for Best Director has been granted to Kristijan Milić for the film Number 55.
‘For a masterly presentation and skilful directing of complex action scenes and a large acting crew.’

Hypo banka grants a prize amounting to HRK 30,000.00 to Kristijan Milić, the director of the film Number 55, and the winner of the Grand Golden Arena for Best Film at the 61th Pula Film Festival.

16. A Grand Golden Arena for Best Film has been granted to the film Number 55 by Kristijan Milić, produced by Croatian Radiotelevision, producer Stanislav Babić.
‘For the film produced according to highest professional standards and the film that achieves an authentic and emotional presentation of a true event from the Croatian War of Independence.’

Teleking grants the producer of the film Number 55, winner of the Grand Golden Arena at the 61^st Pula Film Festival, a post-production services package: image mastering amounting to 10.000€.

We would like to thank all those who offered their help and support to the organization and realization of the 61^th Pula Film Festival

Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia, Croatian Audiovisual Centre, City of Pula, Istria County, Croatian National Tourist Board, City of Pula Tourist Board, Istria County Tourist Board.

Hrvatski telekom –Festival’s partner, Croatian Lottery, Autowill, Arenaturist, Hypo Alpe Adria bank, Croatia osiguranje, Zagrebačka banka, Podravka, Zagrebačka pivovara, LMT, Barco AVC, Image Haddad, Cinestar, RIO, Arena modna kuća, Pernod Ricard as well as other sponsors and donors and companies that presented their products.

Media partners: Croatian Radiotelevison and Pula Radio

Main media patrons: Glas Istre, Jutarnji list, tportal.hr

Media patrons: Novi list, Globus, Klasiktv, La voce del popolo, Regional Express, Radio Istra, Tv Istra, Tv Nova

Pula, 26 July 2014
61st Pul Film Festival

Dear friends of film,

The 61st Pula Film Festival has been closed with a ceremony paying homage to filmmaking and film profession and awarding the very best. During the festival, as part of nine different film programmes, we have offered the audience 163 films on 15 locations. Wishing to create a truly festive atmosphere, we have organized nine professional lectures, four thematic exhibitions and ten concerts.

As a demonstration of changes about to take place, this year’s Pula has hosted Croatian film festivals, it has launched the question of copyright and distribution, it was featured in world film magazines, and it has opened itself up for collaboration.

I would like to thank the faithful Pula audience, all guests, film professionals and media representatives who have been with us and who have shown that the Festival is being perceived as a professional platform for networking, education and exchange of experience and examples of good practice. Festival’s patrons, sponsors and founders have recognized true values and gave their support to the Festival.

I would especially like to thank young people, collaborators and volunteers for giving their best in terms of creativity, effort and desire to create the best possible Festival.

I invite you to stay with us, to follow the news, to give suggestions and be part of the new, 62nd festival!

Pula Film Festival Director
GordanaRestović

Due to bad weather conditions the awards ceremony of the 61st Pula Film Festival will take place in the Istrian National Theatre at 21:30 instead of in the Arena. Due to the limited availability of seats, the ceremony will be attended only by award winners and persons with accreditation.
After the awards ceremony, at 22:30, we will showcase the film Planes: Fire & Rescue for visitors with tickets. The admission to the second tonight’s film These Final Hours is free. The reception for award winners and persons with accreditation will take place at Circolo – the Italian Community. To ensure that all those who have bought tickets for Planes: Fire and Rescue can see the film, we will screen Planes: Fire and Rescue again, on Sunday, at 11:00, at the Valli Cinema. As of Thursday, 1 August, Planes: Fire & Rescuewill be presented as part of the regular programme of the Valli Cinema.

PROGRAMME:
Saturday, 26 July
21:30 Istrian National Theatre – Awards Ceremony (for award winners and persons with accreditations)
22:30 Istrian National Theatre– Planes: Fire & Rescue– admission with tickets (bought or free tickets) until all the seats are taken
24:00 Istrian National Theatre– These Final Hours – free admission

22:30 CIRCOLO – Reception for award winners and persons with accreditations

23:30 FORUM –Neno Belan concert (possible cancellation in case of rain)

Sunday, 27 July
11:00 VALLI CINEMA – Planes: Fire & Rescue– admission with tickets (bought or free tickets)

Thursday, 31 July
VALLI CINEMA – Planes: Fire & Rescue – regular programme

Due to a number of legal issues related to the use of music in the film Vlog by director Bruno Pavić and producer Slobodan Jokić (UMAS), the Pula Film Festival has decided to retrieve the film from the Croatian Programme in accordance with its legal counsellors’ recommendations.

Tonight at 19:00 h, at the Valli Cinema, instead of presenting the film Vlog we are screening the film Three by Aleksandar Petrović from the Pula Cinematheque Programme that was not showcased on the Brijuni Islands on July 21st due to bad weather conditions.

We would like to apologize to visitors and guests of the 61st Pula Film Festival for this programme change.

Branko Ištvančić, director of the feature-length film The Bridge at the End of the World

The Bridge at the End of the World was made as a thriller, a genre that is not so common is Croatian cinema.

An existential drama with some naturalistic moments dominates over this dark thriller that refuses standard genre conventions. With directing entwined with secrecy and mystery revolving around an old man’s disappearance, I’m trying to question human destinies after the war, people who were left behind in the muddy backwoods close to the Bosnian border. In the climate of waste land near the border, in the middle of winter and mud, an interesting intrigue takes place, agitating the entire village. An old man disappears the day the Serbs, the owners of the houses, are returning. Everyone knew the missing old man and everyone is potentially guilty of his disappearance. However, police officer Filip thinks villagers he is visiting are hiding something.

The film is characterized by a complex condition of the protagonist, drawing viewers’ attention to the consequences of war and the tense ending. Being conscious of the fact that I am making an unconventional thriller with mystic elements, I’m relying on director’s resources to emphasize as much as possible and to strengthen the drama in which human destinies are faced with emotional and psychological problems and the overall film is focused on the main conflict drama and the question: Who stands behind Joze’s disappearance and why? The state, politics, friends, enemies or all of them?

The topic of the film is almost completely unknown to Croatian cinema.

In this film the controversial problem of exchanging houses during the war is tackled for the first time. The villages of Bosnian Croats were destroyed and the refugees were re-housed in the homes of Croatian Serbs. According to a special state decree, the Serbian owners have to start returning to their houses and the Croatian residents face an uncertain future. Anger and hostility arise.

I also have Serbian citizenship so I am completely familiar with the problem and I understand it.

The film idea is based on true events, which gives the film specific originality and authenticity. Through this thriller full of local people’s dark intrigues, lies, deceits and delusions, comes to the surface their hostility towards their neighbours, a dark past they want to forget, stupidity and meaninglessness of war that was conducive to their living in other people’s houses. But it will be clear that our characters’ biggest enemies are themselves. With this film I want to encourage people to think. Are we better or worse than after 1991?

Why the title The Bridge at the End of the World?

I used bridge because bridges visually connect people but also because I wanted to give a metaphorical presentation of the lack of communication and damaged interpersonal relationships.

The protagonists feel moral anxiety and they have no hope of finding any solution. They cannot go back to their place of birth in Bosnia and they can neither live in Serbian houses. For them the time has stopped and in that frozen time they are desperately trying to conceive their existence and their future.

Why ‘at the end of the world’? Because in this region there is nothing more left, we have reached the end.

What was the first idea, the first flare that started the film?
After I had read a number of screenplays tackling different social issues, I received the screenplay ‘The Bridge at the End of the World’ by Josip Mlakić that I found interesting because of the topic of re-housing during the war and the innovative dramaturgy of the frozen time in which people from a Croatian village near the Bosnian border lived after the war in Croatia. I found it very intriguing, just like the problem of living in other people’s houses. It was more intriguing than the topic of ethnic hostility that has been the subject-matter of countless films ‘at first sight’.

Does your documentary experience help you when you direct feature films?
I’ll mention Zoran Tadić’s famous thought that I held on to while I was making the film: the documentary filmmaking experience helps in making feature films. As skilful as you were ‘stealing’ lives as a documentarist, as skilful you will be creating life in feature films. My former work on many documentary films helped my make authentic scenes in feature film and achieve that art we learned from Godard, and that is that every feature film strives toward documentary and every documentary towards feature film.

Where did you shoot, when, how long?
I decided to shoot all the scenes on authentic locations, which contributes to the documentary quality, but unfortunately increases the budget. The film was shot during six weeks on locations around Slunj, in Sisak, Veljun, Pisarovina, Lasinjski Sjeničak, Hrvatska Kostajnica and Zagreb and it is set at the end of the nineties. Especially distressing was the column of Serbian refugees played by extras from Slunj of Croatian nationality.

Could you pick out a particularly interesting moment during the shooting?
In Lasinjski Sjeničak the entire team fell in love with a local dog – ‘an extra with a mission’ – that, believe it or not, listens and understands everything you tell him.

What do you think of the idea to place feature-length, documentary films and minority co-productions in the same competition at this year’s Pula?
The subheading of the Pula Film Festival is ‘Feature Film Festival’. It was like that in the sixties, irrespective of the fact that that film was firstly ‘Yugoslavian’ and later ‘Croatian’. I don’t see the reason for this change. I think that the Pula Film Festival has to promote artistic, rather than populist values in national films.

Janko Heidl

Boško Buha – experimental film hero

Alongside feature-length and documentary films, a wide array of this year’s Pula Film Festival’s principal and sidebar programmes includes a few recent experimental films as well as the so-called extended films. This is all part of the already traditional research platform Cinemaniac/To Think Film that has been taking place since 2002 at the MMC Luka galleries in the form of exhibitions.

The exhibition shows works created at the crossroads of different media and periods and this year’s Cinemaniac/To Think Film, envisaged as a permanent research, presents ‘paper films’, ‘films without film’, immovable and movable art works formed or envisaged with strong references to the seventh art moving images.

From 20 July to 6 August, the walls of the MMC Luka are featuring neo-avantgarde decompositional photo collages by Antun Motika , the fragmentary collage-sketch narrative ‘Imagine a Moving Image’ by Marko Tadić, and the sequentially structured series of photographs ‘Without Title’ by Ana Petrović. Visitors can also turn the pages of art books by Tadić and Petrović.

In addition, the found footage collage film ‘All Catacombs Are Grey’ by Dalibor Barić and the transfigurative experimental work ‘Liquid Paper’ by German artist Michel Klofkorn are being presented digitally, without sound.
In the MMC Luka screening room, at the bottom of the gallery, as of July 26, visitors can see the programme ‘Artists’ Cinema – New Narrations’ presenting ten short experimental films by Damir Očka (Spring, 2012), Zlatko Kopljar (K17, 2012), David Maljković (Lost Memories from These Days, 2006), Dan Oki (Post festum, 2012), Ana Hušman (Postcards, 2013), Marko Tadić (Borne By the Birds, 2013), Renata Poljak (Staging Actors, Staging Beliefs, 2011), Ana Bilankov (In War and Revolution, 2011), Matija Debeljuh (Steel City, 2014) and Igor Grubić (Angels with Dirty Faces, 2014).
Among works created in the sphere where contemporary art and cinema meet, on the slippery terrain of moving images that does not offer fixed definitions, there are some very communicative achievements such as Ana Hušman’s witty Postcards, the touching story about the disappearance of unwelcome books In War and Revolution by Ana Bilankov, the animated documentary feature Borne by the Birds by Marko Tadić or Renata Poljak’s Staging Actors, Staging Beliefs that pastes parts of Branko Bauer’s Yugoslav war film Boško Buha (1978) with a fictitious interview with actor Ivan Kojundžić who played the little partisan hero as a boy.

The somewhat modified Artists’ Cinema programme will be shown in the real cinema-like environment at the Valli Cinema on Thursday at 19:00 when visitors will be able to see: A. D. A. M. by Vladislav Knežević, Spring by Damir Očka, K17 by Zlatko Kopljar, Lost Memories from These Days by David Maljković, Postcards by Ana Hušman and Post festum by Dan Oki. Dan Oki’s Post festum is in fact an excerpt from his last year’s feature-length film The Farewell.

After he had headed small film PR companies for several decades, a few years ago McDonald became a freelancer who for each specific job forms a team of selected individuals whose temporary association can satisfy the needs of a film’s PR. Because every film is specific and this approach, he thinks, is much better than having a permanent team for all variations.

A collaborator of many renowned directors such as Ken Loach, Michael Winterbottom, Stephen Frears, David Cronenberg, Pedro Almodovar or Mike Leigh, McDonald talked about two independent and yet connected fields of work: unit publicity and festival positioning.

A publicity strategy should be, as he said, developed as soon as possible, already in the preparation phase of film production so as to agree on the manner and the quantity of media presence on the film set with producers, but also with directors and actors – who are very often not willing to communicate with journalists during the shooting phase, because it interferes with their performance. Because there is no publicity without the media.

It is extremely important to transmit the desired image of the film already in the first media placement. Otherwise, it is hard or impossible to fix it later. Fighting with paparazzis, whose photographs are usually not in consistence with a film’s image, is also one of the key elements.

So in the production phase, media engagement is not so much important because of potential spectators, who will not have a chance to see the film for another year anyway, as because one wants to issue a warning to distributors, cinemas, festivals. In that sense, the most important thing is to publish texts (with best possible photographs!) in three most important film magazines: Screen International, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety.

It is great, said McDonald, that at this year’s Pula fest we have representatives of all the three mentioned publications – Catherine Wendy Mitchell, Nick Holdsworth and Leo Barraclough – who will surely write something on the Pula Film Festival, thus giving it certain international recognition.

Festival positioning is a different story linked to the previous one. At most important festivals – these being, considers McDonals, Cannes, Venice, Berlin and Toronto, that are at the same time the most potent publicity springboards, one has to think of ways to draw attention to his film among hundreds of films being presented there. It is important to ensure that news and stories about the film reach influential media of the countries that have not yet bought the rights to present the film. Interestingly, sometimes it is better for the film to be screened in one of the sidebar programmes than in the main competition programme. Because journalists, or film critics, says McDonald, tend to undermine the main programme and ‘discover’ a gem from the sidebar one. Winning the main prize cannot harm the film but it definitely does not guarantee later commercial success.

‘A small country for a large number of film festivals’, was one of the things heard yesterday during the round table discussion on film festivals in Croatia, organized in Circolo by Pula PRO, the new industrial segment of the Pula Film Festival. After the Sunday’s discussion on copyright, a number of film professionals found this topic interesting, participating in the discussion divided into two sessions.

During the first part the focus was on conversations between the representatives of the leading Croatian film festivals, while the other, somewhat shorter session, was open to the public and the visitors of the Pula Film Festival. Alongside the Pula host, the Croatian Audiovisual Centre artistic advisors and the representative from Creative Europe Desk – Office MEDIA, the event was attended by the representatives of the Motovun Film Festival, Zagreb Film Festival, 25FPS – International Experimental Film and Video Festival, Croatian Film Days, Animafest, ZagrebDOX, Film Forum Zadar, Mediterranean Film Festival Split, Tolerance Festival (JFF) and Split Film Festival.

Host Rajko Grlić presented the topic of the round table discussion – the question of how to acquire films for festivals and the question of screening fees. It was pointed out that these fees tend to go up and that some festival programmers are forced to go along with that or otherwise give up on desired films. As a source of that tendency Grlić identified the media that assess festivals according to the quantity of the much-vaunted premieres so they are constantly racing against the formed public opinion that the more premieres or ‘innocent’ films on the programme, the better the festival.

The term ‘innocent’ means a film not presented in Croatian distribution or seen at other national festivals. Furthermore, this race between national festivals, fifty-six of them in Croatia, is being used by international sales agencies that give films to best bidders. ‘If we apply competitiveness where it reasonably makes no sense to do so, the only effect is the increase in the price of films and then distributors end up as winners’, emphasized Igor Mirković, the director of the Motovun Film Festival.

Mike Downey, a member of the Pula Film Festival Artistic Board, said that films are a cultural product that should not be susceptible to capitalist rules of pure trade, especially in terms of acquiring artistic films. The participants proposed a model according to which national festivals or at least some professionals would join forces, taking over that job and trying to agree on the rules of the game on the national festival scene that would then be observed by all the parties involved.

The participants discussed possible association models, a possible national coordination or at least reinforced cooperation. Some mentioned that the film and festivals are already on the market and that they should team up and follow the same rules, ‘beating’ the adversary using his own weapons. One of the proposed models was a joint purchase of films that would later be screened at several festivals. Exclusivity would still be maintained, according to one of the proposals, by placing those films within sidebar programmes.

Concluding that cooperation is crucial on the Croatian festival scene, the participants suggested that this discussion be continued at the upcoming Zagreb Film Festival. Pula PRO as a host would organize the same meeting next year too, following up on, as the participants assessed, this extremely valuable initiative.

A story of a travelling chef Carl who goes back to his roots to reignite his passion for the kitchen and zest for life and love will be presented tonight at 23:30 in the Arena. The film Chef by renowned American director Jon Favreau inspired the 61st Pula Film Festival organizational team and its partner Podravka to transfer the culinary magic from the film screen onto Portarata for a few hours.

Tonight, before the screening of the film Chef in the Arena, all visitors will have the chance to see, try and maybe even participate in the real Pula Masterchef competition at Portarata. Famous Croatian actors Filip Šovagović and Ranko Zidarić will start the battle armed with culinary utensils, the best ingredients, aprons and the indispensable culinary knowledge.

They will prepare, as you can guess, the dishes that the spectators will see in the film Chef. The decision on the winner of the Pula Masterchef title will be made by the current chef at Portarata and a jury member of the Celebrity Masterchef – Andrej Barbieri, with the assistance of the delicate palates of the Pula audience.

Pula Masterchef will be assisted by a new and up until now unknown assistant – Coolinarka application on Samsung TV. Coolinarka’s SMART TV application will be screened on all Samsung smart television sets produced since 2011 and their users will have the opportunity to cook Coolinarka’s daily recipes. Spectators who come to this event will assess whether Filip Šovagović and Ranko Zidarić know how to make the most out of the application and they will also get the opportunity to try a dish from the film Chef.

We invite you to join the Pula Film Festival’s Masterchef competition and to root for your culinary favourite and then to come to the film screening of Chef in the Arena, experiencing this film with all your senses.

In case of rain, Pula Masterchef will take place in the buffet Qtime located at Portarata.

Silvije Petranović, director, screenwriter and co-producer of the feature-length film The Brave Adventures of a Little Shoemaker

Could you briefly present the film.
I always wanted to make a children’s film that would also appeal to adults. Of course, what first comes to mind is Roman Polanski’s Oliver Twist or Ang Lee’s Life of Pi. Great Branko Bauer wanted to shoot Apprentice Lapitch too. I was always drawn towards complex projects. In addition, as Apprentice Lapitch involves costumes, no matter where you move it on your timeline, and as we were taught at the Academy that it is hard to work with children and animals, and, moreover, Lapitch is also a road movie, a picaresque story, it was hard to resist the challenge. Men always strive to do the impossible or the difficult. I find those huge limitations very stimulating, but my biggest stimulus is the mere idea of the novel: ‘The good you do, comes back to you.’ I think I found that idea the most important.

How did you come up with the idea to start working on Lapitch?
As I myself am a parent and I have children, there is always the routine of reading your kids bedtime stories or inventing a story of your own. I read Apprentice Lapitch to my daughters. When you do it a sufficient number of times, that virus infects you. The first Japanese edition of Lapitch was financed by a Japanese grandpa who read his grandson Apprentice Lapitch every night, translating it from Esperanto. Once he grew tired of it, he commissioned a Japanese edition for all the children in Japan. So, either consciously or unconsciously, you thing about the literary basis. Moreover, my mother was a teacher so I often listened to her and her approach to lower school children.

Were you expecting to achieve such success with the audience in Croatia? Was the film distributed to foreign markets?
I know it sounds pretentious but when we received the first piece of the film, it was clear to me that we were going to have a hit children’s film. Of course, I didn’t think about numbers so when we exceeded 140 000 spectators – which is incredible in Croatia – it only proved that the several years of hard work and meticulousness of performance were worth it. The film has a Canadian distributor and we want to make a dubbed version in English.

Your Lapitch is very well laid out, with classical cutting and a steady tempo. Some commentators thought that approach was very old fashioned but the results have shown that the ‘old-fashionedness’ is appropriate for a child’s perception, the audience the film is primarily intended for.
Yes, my main goal was the framework of the literary basis. An older colleague of mine called me after the premiere and told me: ‘You get children and their psychology.’ It took me precisely several years and ten versions of the screenplay to eliminate all the traps of my ego. I wanted to address children and I think I succeeded. The slow pace and the classics work – if your topic pushes you towards that, then there are no exhibitions but I had the opportunity to develop myself within this canon. I make very different films but I think that poetic note comes to the surface somewhere. The Society of Jesus was a film on a touch. That was a very bold film adventure from the seventeenth century. But that poetic note appears in Lapitch too.

Your decision to place a story of a poor apprentice from the beginning of the twentieth century inside the framework of a fairytale-like, almost surreal visual style was interesting.
Apprentice Lapitch is a fairytale-like story about love. I told it my way. Of course it could have been made in different ways, but I chose mine. We made fireflies – Gita is that surreal firefly on Hlapić’s hand, Gita whom the Black Man calls ‘you little hopper’ is the grasshopper that jumps onto Lapitch’s face. Children asked us whether we shot that grasshopper by chance, but it was carefully designed by a visual effects team on the film. I think there are subtle subconscious elements that need not be rationalize because they work from the background, they are visually strong. I had an opportunity to create a world between reality and dream.

Apprentice Lapitch is an urban story, The Lone Wolf is set in the country and in Train in the Snow children travel from the country to the town. Apprentice Lapitch is set in a town, the Master has his workshop in a town. Apprentice schools were never established in the country. So Lapitch goes from a town, through a village to another town and then goes back to the town. He is a poor orphan. He was an apprentice and he was not a ragged fellow or a vagrant child like all other apprentices in those days. Moreover, he is very stylish, due to the effort made by Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić: red shirt, new green pants, new shiny boots, new shiny strip on the cap… Strong colours in a story spanning six nights and seven days.

Where did you shoot? When? How long?
The shooting lasted for about two and a half months. As Lapitch originates from Slavonia, just like me, it was logical to spread the film between those two big cities, Zagreb and Osijek, through Slavonia and Baranja, the region I know very well, the dialect I know very well.

I spent two years looking for locations. Everything is authentic: Lekenik, Karlovac, Odransko polje, Plešivica Mountain, Lučelnica, Zagreb, Osijek, Baranja… Except, of course, the house with a blue star I’m so proud of. Art director Ivo Hušnjak made it so meticulously that neither the crew realized that the house and the barn were made for the purposes of the film, at Crna Mlaka. Of course, we tore everything down later. Unfortunately, Apprentice Lapitch is the last film by a great film worker, prop man Željko Luter, who planted a real garden around the house with the blue star, with paprika, tomatoes and flowers. Those details are subconscious elements that you are not aware of while watching the film but they signal you from the background that you can accept everything you see.

As you said it, one learns at the Academy that it is hard to work with animals. There is a whole array of animals in Lapitch.
It is always unpredictable yet interesting to work with animals. Horses, many different horses and their doubles on new locations, a Tornjak dog, parrot Lujo, donkey Belmoreto that came from Istria, cows, geese, a ball python, mice, the servant’s cat – they represent a nice bunch of animals experiencing many adventures so when you reach the end, you are amazed at what you got yourself into.

The cat that jumps into the servant’s wash-basin was filmed in Sisak. The cat that was with us in Zagreb wandered off to Pisarovina in the meantime so that day we didn’t have a cat in Sisak where we were supposed to shoot the cat against a green background. Then Kristijan Mršić, who masterly handled all the effects on the film, found that greedy black cat that was scrounging for food around tables in the restaurant’s garden. And that’s how that unnamed cat was made immortal in the famous scene with the wash-basin. Everything turned out great in the end: two cats shot in two towns in the same scene.

What do you think of the idea to place feature-length and documentary films as well as minority productions in the same competition at this year’s Pula?
Big nations have large-scale world festivals. We have a huge, magnificent Pula Arena and a big regional tradition of Yugoslav film. Something this magnificent doesn’t exist anywhere and they even wanted to abolish the Pula fest! Pula had a great potential of becoming the biggest regional and even more so Mediterranean festival – when we had to be smart, we missed our chance and others jumped on the train, for example Sarajevo with its modest infrastructure. I think we shouldn’t give up on that, on Pula as a regional and Mediterranean festival of the list B FIAPF. This has to be initiated by the Ministry of Culture but also by the City of Pula. It doesn’t take much to make a project of good quality!

Janko Heidl