After winning the Best Picture Award at Fantastic Fest, Slovenian director Luka Marčetić’s Girl in the Night landed at the Festival of Slovenian Film, where it won Best Screenplay, the FIPRESCI Award and a couple of technical prizes.

This unconventional feature follows a young kleptomaniac named Rok (Urban Kuntaric) who works the monotonous night shift at a gas station. One night, he encounters a young woman (Lara Wolf) who roams the city as a self-appointed vigilante in search of missing pets, lost objects and other kinds of crimes that go unnoticed. After this unusual encounter, the strange little worlds of these two outcasts start crashing and events proceed to unfold unexpectedly.

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Girl in the Night, which is Marčetić's third feature-length effort and was also written by him, possesses a quality very rarely found in contemporary cinema: originality. We often see films that are extremely well made and engaging, but lack an original take on things. They follow in the footsteps of previous successes, use predictable plot twists and generally just do not challenge the viewer or go beyond conventions and expectations. These films work, make it into festivals and sometimes perform well at the box office, but they are often difficult to remember in the long run because, after a while, they simply blend into the high amount of productions that get made every year.

In this case, however, we are dealing with one of those stories which stand out precisely because of their extravagance and their strangeness. These become memorable because they are undoubtedly unconventional and, at times, also make us wonder: is what I’m watching really happening?

Another feature that allows Girl in the Night to feel both original and well constructed and directed is its cinematography (Lev Predan Kowarski). The yellow, blue and green tones framing the scenes are certainly a distinctive touch that contributes to the film’s success. Casting also played an important role. To embody a character who is difficult to believe in, or particularly irreverent as is the case here, with rather unusual motivations, it is essential to choose an actor capable of conveying that ambiguity and bringing to life a character who is not easy to read, and Urban Kuntaric turns out to be absolutely fantastic as the male lead, as is his female counterpart. The close-ups on their facial expressions, ranging from comedic to horrorish, truly are a pleasure to watch.

In this sense, this production offers a complete package. It possesses all the qualities needed to be considered a little gem. Moreover, taking into account its Slovenian origins, it gives us reason to be optimistic about the future of cinema in the region. Slovenian cinema can clearly use originality to its advantage, and tell stories that more conventional filmmaking often struggles to bring to the screen, as proved by another recent example, as memorable as Marčetić’s film: Ida Who Sang So Badly Even the Dead Rose Up and Joined Her in Song, which also scooped multiple prizes at the Festival of Slovenian Films including the main one.

Girl in the Night is a Slovenian production by Temporama, in co-production with 001 and Studio Cepelin.