Slovenian Films and Awards at Trieste Film Festival

03. February 2008

The 19th edition of the international Trieste Film Festival took place from 17-24 January 2008. During all these years Slovenian film was rarely missing in the competition as well as accompanying sections. This year, however, it was present in all competition categories.

The most prestigious category – Feature Film Competition – saw two Slovenian films Estrellita by director Metod Pevec and Installation of Love by Maja Weiss. The jury of the feature film section granted the main award and € 5,000 to the Polish film Plac Zbawiciela (Saviour Square) directed by Krzysztof Krauze and Joanna Kos-Krauze. Installation of Love received the special jury award for “originality of the cinematographic language and the cultural and materialistic consumption satire”. Estrellita just missed the Audience Award; it was placed second.

The winner of the last Portorož festival Children from the Petriček Hill was in the documentary competition section. The film was directed by Miran Zupanič and produced by Arsmedia. The audience placed it third, which is, in the selection of over twenty documentary films, a great achievement

Two Slovenian films were in the Short Film Competition as well; On the Sunny Side of Alps by Janez Burger and The Hole by Marko Šantiæ that was made in the production of the Ljubljana Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television. This section as well granted a special jury award to a Slovenian film; On the Sunny Side of Alps for “its original mixture of absurd and ironic disclosure of nationalistic stereotypes that enclose the modern politics”.

A special screening of the modernistic masterpiece On Wings of Paper was prepared to the memory of Matjaž Klopčič, Slovenian film giant, who passed away a while ago. The film was made in 1967 and launched Klopčič into the international film space.