11/10/2011

Danijel Kušan’s Koko and the Ghosts [+see also:
film review
film profile] opened this weekend in Croatia on 13 prints, selling 6,884 admissions to earn gross BO of €23,616, which makes it the highest opening of a local film in the territory since Hrvoje Hribar’s What’s a Man Without a Moustache? five years ago, which is the biggest local hit to date.

The film reached number two on the BO chart, behind Johnny English Reborn [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which is on its fourth weekend, and ahead of Contagion on its second. The children’s film is based on the second in the series of novels about the boy Koko by the director’s father Ivan Kušan who also co-wrote the script. The Koko books have been a cult in the former Yugoslavia since the 1980s and are still very popular among Croatian children and their parents.

In ...Ghosts, Koko (Antonio Parač) moves from his home village to the big city, to an apartment which used to belong to an old miser (Predrag Vušović) who died under mysterious circumstances. Apparently the place is infested with ghosts and Koko will need help from his old friends, worried parents, sister Marica (Nina Mileta), police inspector Krivić (Rakan Rushaidat) and a loyal dog.

At this year’s national Pula Film Festival, Koko and the Ghosts won best newcomer for director Kušan, best editing for Slaven Zečević, best music for Dinko Appelt, the Young Jury Award and the Audience Award. The film was produced by Kinorama and Croatian national broadcaster HRT and will go on to the Chicago International Film Festival, festivals for children and young people in Yerevan and Teheran, SCHLINGEL in Chemnitz, Germany and Listapad in Minsk.