Following its participation in the Works in Progress and First Cut Lab industry programmes at the 2019 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival while at the post-production stage, Ivan Bakrač’s After the Winter [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Ivan Bakrač
scheda film] will now compete against 11 other world premieres from Eastern Europe during the upcoming 55^th edition of the Czech festival in August (see the news).

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Backed by the first independent film production company in Montenegro, Artikulacija Film (Ajvar [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Ana Maria Rossi
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intervista: Antonio Nuić
scheda film]), the film portrays an “honest and painfully touching relationship between young people with whom their generation will identify, just as the previous one will grieve”, as producer Ivan Đurović puts it. With about ten feature-length films, documentaries, shorts and TV series behind him, Đurović managed to secure financing from the Ministry of Culture of Montenegro, Film Center Serbia, the Croatian Audiovisual Centre, the Film Centre of Montenegro and Creative Europe - MEDIA.

The plot gathers five Montenegrin childhood friends who grew up together in a small town and still maintain a special bond, despite being scattered all across the former Yugoslavia. Over the course of one year, and after a series of life-defining events, they will have to face the transformation of their careless, escapist youth into newfound maturity. As winter fades away, each of them will have to build a new world of their own.

“The driving force behind the story is the motif of youth coming to an end, which I approach as something that comes suddenly, an occurrence which is both expected and a result of a conscious delay,” explains Bakrač. Furthermore, he adds that the narrative is driven by events and social conditions surrounding the characters, whose process of growing up was postponed by the immature nature of the recently formed countries of post-war former Yugoslavia that they inhabit, given that they are young states in constant transition. “There is a lot of space left to create associations with the eternal questions about our own selves, about that thing that shapes, directs and, ultimately, defines life and creates a plan, a project out of it. This is a story of a vanishing world, a nostalgic and humorous ode to friendship and youth,” concludes the director.

An alumnus of Berlinale Talents, Talents Sarajevo and the Zurich FF Academy, Bakrač has already explored the subjects of complex human relationships, closeness, deep emotions and vanishing worlds in his earlier shorts Wars (2013), Our Skin Is Going to Gray (2014) and Malesh (2016), through the lens of his faithful cinematographer Dušan Grubin, who is behind the camera for his full-length debut as well. The cast features young Montenegrin actors Momčilo Otašević and Petar Burić, and promising Serbian actresses Maja Šuša, Ivona Kustudić and Ana Vučković.

After the Winter is being produced by Montenegro’s ABHO Film and Artikulacija Film, in co-production with Serbia’s Biberche Productions and Akcija Film and Croatia’s Maxima Film, and in association with Arizona Productions from France.