Introduction to the Film Programme

The common denominator for artists hosted in the spirit of this year’s festival motto – Abracadabra! – is the “magic” of the outlived and non-functional patriarchal patterns, socio-political conventions and moral and ethical norms and values that prefer something more abstract and elusive than an individual human being – namely, the “magical power” of religion, ideology and political beliefs, which can serve to liberate an individual or transform them into a tool for manipulation and enslavement in the name of consumerism, (neo)capitalism, religious fanatism, craving for money, lust for power, authority and control. 

In collaboration with Slovenska Kinoteka, we are presenting a retrospective of Marguerite Duras, the French writer and director, a free-spirited artist who overcame a number of obstacles – from poverty and her father’s death in early childhood, to a Victorian rigidity that failed to harness her sexuality and “unlady-like” behaviour – to hold on to her dreams to dedicate her life to writing. Slovenska Kinoteka will also host a presentation from a similar women’s festival from Cairo – the Arab-Iberoamerican Women’s Film Festival aimed at the network development of Arab, Spanish and Latin American women filmmakers. Their perspective from behind the camera as they found themselves in the arena of the current “Arab spring” brings films from Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt, Iraq and Tunisia. These films deal with a series of social and political topics that every new turmoil in the world once again ejects to the surface, such as migrations, exile, terrorism, activism or the role of women in the social structure of the community.

Together with Kinodvor City Cinema we have organised a pre-festival event – the premiere of the film omnibus Some Other Stories, “a project by five women directors, revealing the social pulse in the territories of the former Yugoslavia as well as the dilemmas, doubts, hopes and relationships to current topics of the younger generation” in which women play the leading role, not only on the screen but in the production process as well. The children’s section of the film programme encompasses two screenings of Tomorrow Will Be Better by Polish director Dorota Kędzierzawska, a story about three young fugitives, “the great little heroes of the wicked times we live in.”

In collaboration with the Škuc Gallery, the panel entitled “Female Workers: Between Freedom, Choice and Poverty” will include the screening of the Serbian documentary
12-15%, which addresses the presence and ways of representation of women (and other marginalized groups) in media.  

The principal thought to be reflected on by our viewers is that modern science has already developed efficient methods to resolve a number of catastrophic global phenomena – from epidemics to relieving hunger, poverty and environment protection issues. And that mankind and every individual hold within themselves a totally different set of values and objectives from the one imposed upon all of us by the global rat race. It might seem unreal and utopian, but human history is full of incredible violence and miracles alike. The transformation of mankind into a community of autonomous and liberated individuals regardless their skin colour, race, religious or political belief – utopia? or – Abracadabra! Let the magic begin. (Barbara Hribar) 

Programme:

Marija Džidževa (MK), Ana Maria Rossi (SRB), Ivona Juka (HR), Ines Tanović (BiH), Hanna Slak (SI)
Some Other Stories

Dorota Kędzierzawska
Tomorrow Will Be Better (Jutro będzie lepiej)

Marguerite Duras Retrospective 

Lidija Vasiljevic & Violeta Andjelkovic
12–15% 

Arab Lotfi
Tell Your Tale, Little Bird

Nadia El Fani
The Children of Lenin 

Amal Ramsis
Forbidden

Dahna Abou Rahmeh
Kingdom of Women

Nada Doumani
Errant Home

MARGUERITE DURAS RETROSPECTIVE

Ingenium and ingenuitas… Great stylists are few. In the French prose of the 20th century, Alain, Proust, Gide, Giraudoux and two or three others. To be a great stylist means first of all having that inimitable way in which the author edits the substance of their creative process. Three words, two commas, and we recognise them. Or three shots, two pans. Indeed, it is absolutely the same in film. We instantly recognise Méliés, Eisenstein, Ophüls, Fellini. Marguerite Duras’ originality (and she shares this only with Cocteau) is that she is a great stylist in literature and cinema alike.
In film, what is Duras recognised for? Or, to put it slightly different, what inimitable quality has she brought to contemporary cinematography to embody a moment of this contemporaneity? A world – her worlds – that’s for sure. A world whose mental meteorology is familiar with the tempestuousness of mad love, living despair and blanks in the memory, and whose geography extends from Indo-China, past Auschwitz to the coast of Normandy. But this world already exists in her books. Then it is mainly a particular aesthetics of the simple and the sublime comprised of long shots and slow pans, a broad autonomy of images and soundtrack where music and voice play a bewitching role; in short, the aesthetics of generalised “litotes”: nothing is ever completely played, presented in a realistic way. The viewer has to finish the film by himself, he has to read it and combine disparate elements. One could talk about a talent, a genius (lat.: ingenium). Maybe we should – or to the same extent – talk about ingenuitas. If the word gave us “ingenuity”, then it first of all illustrates the nobility of emotions and the condition of a free man (or, hearkening way back to Plautus, a free woman). Because only a man, only a woman, who approaches film with the ultimate naivety and sense of utopia – and the firmness that gives absolute freedom – can, the same as Marguerite Duras, encourage not yet established young people (Bruno Nuytten, Carlos d’Alessio, Gerard Dépardieu), take distance from technical achievements that seem unavoidable these days, impose on the actors a new way of acting and ultimate sacrifice (such as silence) and finally surrender to the ecstasy with a simple admiration, considered arrogance, in front of realised images. Yes, he or she can, just like she did, re-discover film.  (Dominique Noguez)

Programme

Thursday, October 6th
9 pm: India Song

Saturday, October 8th 
7 pm: Destroy, She Said (Détruire dit-elle)
9 pm: Baxter, Vera Baxter

Sunday, October 9th
7 pm: Agatha et les lectures illimitées
9 pm: The Children (Les enfants)

Monday, October 10th
10 pm: The Atlantic Man (L'homme Atlantique)

Friday, October 14th
7 pm: Hiroshima mon amour