Burger's Circus Fantasticus triumphs at Portoroz

05. October 2010
The 13th Festival of Slovenian Film in Portoroz wrapped on Sunday night with Janez Burger's Circus Fantasticus winning six Vesna prizes, including Best Film and Best Director.

The 75-minute allegory without any dialogue is a co-production between Slovenia's Staragara, Ireland's Fastnet Films, Finland's Cine Works and Sweden's Film i Väst, financed by the Slovenian Film Fund, Irish Film Board, Finnish Film Foundation, MEDIA Programme and Eurimages, and was budgeted at €2 million. It was shot in Slovenia and Ireland.

Circus Fantasticus also won Best Supporting Actor for Ravil Sultanov, Best Music for Drago Ivanusa, Best Sound for Robert Flanagan and Best Make-up for Alenka Nahtigal. The sponsor award from Kodak went to the film's cinematographer Divis Marek.

Writer-director Goran Vojnovic's debut feature Piran-Pirano received three awards: Best Screenplay, Best Actress for Nina Ivanisin, and Best Editing for Janez Bricelj.

The Best Actor award was shared by Jurij Zrnec from Miha Hocevar's Let's Go Our Own Way and Gojmir Lesnjak from Ziga Virc's short Trieste Is Ours!

Best Cinematography went to Marko Brdar for Vlado Skafar's Venice Critics' Week entry Dad, and the film's young star Sandi Salamon also won the Vesna for Special Achievement and sponsor Stop Award for Actor of the Year.

Best Production Design went to Dusko Milavec and Sanda Popovac for Danis Tanovic's Cirkus Columbia and Bjanka Ursulov won Best Costume for omnibus Some Other Stories.

Amir Muratovic picked up Best Documentary for Maypole, Peter Bratusa took Best Short for 10 Years and Best Animated Film went to Koni Steinbacher for Dance of Death.

Vladan Petkovic for Cineuropa