11/08/2005

The Locarno International Film Festival has always endeavoured to launch ex-Yugoslavian directors and actors on an international scale—ultimately, it distinguished Gori vatra, by Pjer Zalica, with a Silver Leopard 2003, a prize followed by great successes at many festivals and in the theatres where it was released everywhere in Europe.
This year, the section 'Filmakers of the Present' includes Delo osvobaja - Labour Equals Freedom, by Damjan Kozole (to whom Chicago dedicates a special week this Summer). This film, described by its own author as 'a tragi-comedy where despair and humour walk hand in hand,' deals with Slovenia as a new member of the European Union.

Aleksandra Balmazovic (seen in Sivi camion cervene boje, by the Serbian director Srdjan Koljevic) will come back in Coma, by Mike Figgis and the Coma Group, an experimental film co-produced by Slovenia, the UK, France, and Spain. The project started during a workshop where the British director taught a group of directors and actors from all over Europe, including Hanna Slak, Martin Jelovsek and Jovan Arsenic (from Serbia).

Locarno will also screen a documentary on love after the war directed by Miroslav Mandic who was not only the assistant of Kusturica for Underground and When Father was Away on Business but also worked as a writer, script-writer, professor (notably at the Famu in Prague), actor and photographer. Ljubav na granici is a documentary on love stories between people from different countries of in ex-Yugoslavia. Lovers from Sarajevo, Dubrovnik, Mostar, and Montenegro often have to move home to be able to see each other because of the disapproval by their families and friends .