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FESTIVALS Croatia

Blink wins the 15th Liburnia Film Festival

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- Non-professional filmmaker Jakov Labrović has won for best Croatian documentary with an intimate portrait of his schizophrenic brother

Blink wins the 15th Liburnia Film Festival
Director Jakov Labrović with his award for Blink

The 15th Liburnia Film Festival, dedicated to Croatian documentaries, took place from 21-25 August. Last year, the festival moved from the small coastal town of Ičići to the famous tourist resort of Opatija and its open-air Summer Stage, and has since been gaining in visibility and attendance. 

The Best Film Award went to the 19-minute Blink by Jakov Labrović, a portrait of the director's schizophrenic brother through four different stages of treatment. Shot with a candid camera in two Croatian psychiatric institutions (where filming permits are impossible to get), as well as in a flat in Vienna, the film is an “intimate and devastating cinematic journey through various psycho-physical states”, said the jury, which comprised Croatian directors Eva Kraljević and Igor Bezinović, Serbian editor Jelena Maksimović, Slovenian distributor Vasja Bibič and the director of Kosovo's Prizren DokuFest, Veton Nurkollari

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A Special Mention and the Audience Award went to Vedrana Pribačić's The Factory Is Ours!, which charts the story of workers from a small town who managed to get their factory back out of the clutches of corrupt new owners and make it the first such company in Croatia to use the ESOP (employee stock ownership plan) system, with every worker owning stocks, giving him or her the power to manage company business.

Goran Dević received the Best Director Award for The Steel Mill Café, just two weeks after winning the Best Film Award in DokuFest's Balkan Dox competition.

Here is the full list of award winners: 

Best Film
Blink – Jakov Labrović
Special Mention
The Factory Is Ours! – Vedrana Pribačić

Best Director
Goran Dević – The Steel Mill Café 

Best Cinematography
Boris Poljak – They Just Come and Go 

Best Editing
Dario Bagarić – Kika 

Best Sound Design
Tomislav Domes – Almost Nothing

Best Regional Film
Nonna – Mario Pućić

Audience Award
The Factory Is Ours! - Vedrana Pribačić

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