11/10/2022 - The Croatian director’s emotional debut feature follows a family dealing with one of the sons’ suicide attempts and mental illness

Bruno (Juraj Lerotić) runs over to his brother Damir’s (Goran Marković) flat after Damir’s call informing him that he has attempted suicide. Over the course of the next 24 hours, Bruno, Damir and their mother (Snježana Sinovčić Šiškov) have to wrestle with the deterioration of Damir’s mental health, his irrational and potentially dangerous decisions, as well as the lack of sympathy shown by the system and its inability to help. Based on filmmaker Juraj Lerotić’s own experiences, and austere in terms of its style, Safe Place [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Juraj Lerotić
film profile] is a film that packs an emotional punch.

Safe Place world-premiered in the Cineasti del Presente competition at Locarno, winning three prizes there – for Best Debut, Best Directing and Best Actor (for Marković). Its triumphant tour of the festivals continued in the main competition of the Sarajevo Film Festival, where it won two Hearts of Sarajevo, for Best Film and Best Actor (Lerotić), along with the CICAE and Cineuropa Awards. Safe Place was also submitted as the Croatian entry for the US Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. The Croatian premiere is scheduled to take place at the 20^th Zagreb Film Festival on 23 October, and it will enter domestic distribution just after that, on 3 November. In preparation for this, we present the exclusive trailer of the film.

Safe Place was also written by Lerotić. Marko Brdar served as the cinematographer, Marko Ferković as the editor, Jana Plećaš as the production designer and Katarina Pilić as the costume designer. It was produced by Miljenka Čogelja for main production company Pipser. The co-production companies are Zelena zraka from Croatia and December from Slovenia. The film was also supported by the Croatian Audiovisual Centre, the Slovenian Film Centre and Croatian Radio-Television, while it also won the Eurimages Co-production Development Award at the CineLink Co-production Market of the Sarajevo Film Festival. It will be distributed by Hulahop, while Cercamon handles the world sales.

Watch our exclusive trailer below: