05-05-2011

PRODUCTION: Night Boats in Production

By FNE Staff

    Night Boats, a Croatian-Slovenian-Serbian coproduction directed by Igor Mirković, began shooting in Zagreb on 28 April 2011. The melodrama was written by Mirković along with Elvis Bošnjak and Ognjen Sviličić.

    The film stars AnaKarić and the renowned Slovenian theatre actor, Radko Polič. They will be joined by Croatian and Serbian actors Pero Kvrgić, Renata Ulmanski, Bogdan Diklić, Jadranka Đokić, Lana Barić, Angel Palašev, with a cameo role played by Jimmy Stanić.

    Night Ships is a love story about seventy-year-old ‘teenagers' who run away from the nursing home where they meet. They fight with their last drops of life for romance, for their last chance to fall in love. The pair flee in an unlicensed car, hide from the police, make friends with bikers, sneak into a hotel, buy boat tickets to Venice, and prove that in love there are no boundaries, at any age.

    "This is a story about how a soul cannot be retired, this is a film about saving oneself, a battle against everything withering inside of us," Karić said of the film, describing it as the Croatian version of The Bridges of Madison County.

    The cinematographer is the professor at the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb, Silvestar Kolbas. The film is produced by Studio dim (www.dim.hr), a Zagreb production company and made in association with Croatian Television (www.hrt.hr) and production companies Bela Film (www.belafilm.si) from Ljubljana and Delirijum from Belgrade.

    The film is co-funded by the Croatian Audiovisual Centre (www.havc.hr), and supported by Eurimages, MEDIA, the City of Rijeka, Serbian Film Centre, Slovenian Film Centre (www.film-sklad.si), Viba film (www.vibafilm.si) and TV Slovenia (www.rtvslo.si).

    Night Boats will shoot for six weeks in Zagreb, Rijeka and on locations around Đurđevac. The Croatian premiere is scheduled for January 2012.