The 15th Festival of Slovenian Film in Portorož concluded

04. October 2012

The main Vesna Award of the 15th Festival of Slovenian Film went to the feature Thanks for Sunderland, in which the director Slobodan Maksimović depicts two phenomena of the modern (Slovenian) society: an honest worker on the brink of existence and a spoiled star.

The Vesna Award for Best Actor went to Gregor Baković, who convinced the jury as the honest Johan. The Award for Best Male Supporting Role went to Branko Đurić – Đuro, and Thanks for Sunderland also received the Award for Best Editing, which went to Jurij Moškon and Milan Milošević.
The Vesna Award for Best Direction went to Metod Pevec for his drama about relationships, entitled Tango Abrazos. "Their" actor Uroš Fürst shared the Vesna Award for Best Actor with Bakovič. Tango Abrazos, a story of two couples who go to tango lessons and discover that the reverse combinations work much better, also received the Vesna Award for Best Actress, which went to Jana Zupančič. Marjuta Slamič received the Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role of Phirav Pao in the film Shanghai Gypsy.
Matevž Luzar received the Award for Best Script for the film Good to Go. The bitter sweet tale of aging, turning the stereotypes upside down and telling us it is never too late to live, also received the Award for Best Photography (Simon Tanšek), Costumes (Pia Šinigoj Premzl), Production Design (Katja Šoltes) and Sound (Julij Zornik). It was also the best film in the opinion of the audience.
The Long Vacation by Damjan Kozole was the best of the documentary films. The film focuses on the intertwined life stories of three people, marked for life by the political decision to remove them from the register of citizens.
The best animated film was Little Ladybird Wants to Grow Up by Miha Knific, while the Award for Best Music went to Primož Obržan for the short film Hundred Dogs by Jan Cvitkovič. Shanghai Gypsy by the director Marko Naberšnik, which opened the festival, also received the Award for Best Makeup, which went to Mirjam Kavčič. The Vesna Award for Best Short Film went to Sunrise Over the City by the director Blaž Završnik, which had been moved by the jury to the category of shorts from the category of student films. The best student film was Kekec, Three Days Before Marriage by the director Jaka Šuligoj.
Traditionally the winner of the Badjura Life Achievement Award was pronounced before the festival began, and this year it went to the costumes designer and pedagogue Alenka Bartl. Ms. Bartl received the only grand professional award for the work in the field of film for her extraordinary original contributions to film costumes design throughout her extremely fertile 54 years of working in the field of Slovenian film.
This year 66 titles were presented at the Slovenian Film Festival, of which 45 qualified for the competition programme. The films were seen by approximately 5000 viewers in four days.
The Digital film screenings in the Auditorium amphitheatre were an important novelty of this year's festival. They were seen, on average, by some 500 viewers per evening. Furthermore, the screenings in the Main Hall, enjoyed by around 250 people even in the afternoons, were also very well attended this year.