THEY JUST COME AND GO (2017, 20’)

Boris Poljak (HR)

Bačvice beach, Split. In the early morning hours nothing happens, the night is over. And yet, there on the beach, there is a frequent — quite usual, but really very unusual — occurrence. A clash of the worlds. The so-called youth are returning from clubs and bars, while the so-called elderly are coming from their homes. The end for one is a beginning for the other. They Just Come and Go is a cinematic anthropology by Boris Poljak and his ethnographic approach through an invisible observation a capture of the differences co-existing in a certain place and time, thus creating a specific social choreography. As the jury at the 63th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, which presented Poljak with the first prize, wrote: “Exquisite documentary shots coalesce into a round dance of fervor, desire, loss, maturity, struggle and devotion, stillness and movement. Those secret looks are truly human, naughty, loving and full of truth. With strong contrasts and precise and brilliant images the film captures the futility of life among different generations. Life will go on living, from beginning to end. In the sea, the water, under the sun, in this film.”

SRBENKA (2018, 70’)

Nebojsa Slijepcevic (HR)

You, Frljić, you necrophile, only you are capable of creating a play about a dead girl; are you a necrophile, are you sick?!” says an actress at the rehearsal for a play. Oliver Frljić replies: “While you don’t have a problem with it, if you’re so very superior, I’m not!” Director Nebojša Slijepčević filmed these rehearsals in which the actors are preparing for a play about the murder of the Serbian Zec family in Zagreb in 1991. The family was murdered by members of a Croatian paramilitary squad who were released despite their confessions. Through the discussions among the actors, not only are their personal stories revealed, but also the stigma as was formed in the nationalistic discourses which haunt post-war generations. Slijepčević made the film without initial intent and with no budget — he filmed the rehearsals more as visual research, but on the spot, some urgent real relations in the post-war era revealed themselves to him, and the material became a film in itself. A film, which through the director’s metalanguage, shows specific contemporary characteristics of co-existence.

©Srbenka & Oni samo dolaze i odlaze