The 22nd Festival of Slovenian Film opened last night in Portorož, where it will close with the awards ceremony on Sunday, 22 September. During the ceremony, the Badjura Award was presented to the 2019 laureate Andrej Zdravič, whose short film Sand’s Journey was screened before the opening film of the festival, Metod Pevec’ new feature I Am Frank featuring Janez Škof, Valter Dragan and Katarina Čas. The host of the opening, which also featured an appearance by the popular local singer-songwriter Rudi Bučar, was Jure Longyka. The ceremony was followed by a reception in the Avditorij foyer.
In her opening address, the Director of the Slovenian Film Centre, Nataša Bučar, drew attention to the important progress achieved after years of efforts for adequate funding of the Slovenian cinema: “In November 2018, members of the Slovenian Parliament’s Committee on Culture unanimously voted in favour of the decision to raise the funding for Slovenian cinema to 11 million euros by 2022.” As a result, in 2019 the Slovenian Film Centre “can work with a budget that is bigger than any time in the last decade, although still at just over half of the envisaged 11 million.” At the same time, the creative potential of filmmakers thrives: “The latest call for feature films yielded a very high number of projects of very high quality; however, due to the lack of funds as many as 11 feature films had to be placed on a reserve list and only six projects could receive support. This proves that the creative potential of Slovenian cinema is growing. I expect that so will the budget for cinema, as it was agreed,” added Nataša Bučar in the hope of a brighter future for Slovenian cinema.
As previously announced, the main Slovenian film event will provide, over a little less than a week, a curated overview of the latest Slovenian cinema, which includes fiction, documentary and animated films of all lengths. A total of 157 films were submitted to the festival for consideration by the Programming Board, with 106 films making it into the official selection. Of this, the Official Competition includes 57 films: 11 feature-length films, 10 minority co-productions (8 feature-length and 2 short), 5 medium-length films, 19 short films, and 13 student films.
The screenings take place in two venues, Avditorij and Monfort Cinema, the latter also being the venue for daily post-screening socialising with a varied DJ and live music line-up. For films in the Official Competition, Q&As with filmmakers take place the day after their screening and are broadcast by the AKTV film academy TV live on its website or available from its archive with a one-day delay.
The main new feature of this year’s festival is a live broadcast of the awards ceremony on TV Slovenia on Sunday, 22 September. After the festival, between Tuesday, 24 September, and Saturday, 28 September, the award-winning films will also be screened in the Komuna Cinema, Ljubljana. The line-up will be announced on the festival website after the awards ceremony.
The industry programme is focused on facilitating and promoting co-productions with Italy. The diverse range of events also encompasses round table discussions, workshops, and lectures, including a round table on book adaptations chaired by the film critic Marcel Štefančič Jr., and an event in which editors and publishers will pitch Slovenian literary works to an audience of film producers.
