Slovenian Films at Berlinale 2008
The film Love and Other Crimes by the Serbian director Stefan Arsenijeviæ is to be shown in the Panorama section. It is a Serbian German Slovenian co production, participated in by the Slovenian production house Arkadena, while the Slovenian creative input was provided by the director of photography Simon Tanšek, who worked on major Slovenian films like Idle Running (1999), Ruins (2004) and Gravehopping (2005). The film story takes us to contemporary Belgrade, where a young girl dreams about a better future. His plans are unexpectedly interfered with by love. Stefan Arsenijevič was born in 1977, and in fact he began his successful film career by cooperating with Slovenian filmmakers. In 2003 his Slovenian short film Atorsion received the Golden Bear for Best Short Film in Berlin, and in the same year this film was also nominated for the Academy Awards.
Atorsion as well as Arsenijeviæ's first feature film Love and Other Crimes was filmed in cooperation with the production house Arkadena and with the financial support of the Film Fund of the Republic of Slovenia.
The second co production in the Panorama section is the film I'm from Titov Veles by the Macedonian director Teona Mitevska. It is a Macedonian-Belgian-Slovenian-French co production, and Slovenia is represented by the production house Vertigo/Emotion Film, costumes designer Monika Lorber, makeup designer Mojca Gorogranc and actor Peter Musevski.
The film is a story about three sisters, trying to get by and survive in the self centered times of a social transition after a failed socialist revolution, when the door opens widely to the nouveau riche. The Film Fund of the Republic of Slovenia also participated in the second film by Teona Mitevska.
The European Film Market, taking place during Berlinale, will be organised for the third year in a row in the new building Martin Gropius Bau, where the Film Fund of the Republic of Slovenia and thus also Slovenian film will be presented for the third time at a joint venue together with Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians and Poles under a common trademark CEC – Central European Cinema.
The following films are going to be screened at the Market: Rooster's Breakfast, a national cinematographic hit and first film by the director Marko Naberšnik, Installation of Love, the second feature film by Maja Weiss, and Landscape No.2, the second feature film by Vinko Möderndorfer. At the screenings these films will seek the best festival and sales opportunities.
Rooster's Breakfast and Installation of Love have already been seen by the Slovenian audience, while Landscape No.2 is going to open in the national cinemas in the autumn, after its premiere at the Festival of Slovenian Film.