BORDERS

SLOVENIA 10 MIN

RUSSIAN PREMIERE

ABOUT

A beautiful autumn day. A beautiful landscape is slowly covered by faces passing a camera positioned along the Slovenian part of the refugee path. The faces exchange glances with ones on the other side of the camera – the viewers. At the end, when silence returns, only the landscape is left, but it is suddenly completely different.

DIRECTOR

DAMJAN KOZOLE

Distinguished Slovenian filmmaker whose directing credits include the 2003 critically acclaimed Spare Parts and 2009 worldwide released Slovenian Girl, among others. Spare parts was nominatedfor the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival; in 2008 Sight & Sound ranked it among the ten most important films of the New Europe. Nightlife is Kozole’s ninth feature, which premiered in the Competition program of Karlovy Vary IFF 2016, where it received Best Director Award. He is also the respected author of numerous documentary films.

OTHER FESTIVALS

• Sarajevo Film Festival: Human Rights Award, Bosnia & Herzegovina 2016 
• DokuDoc: Best Film of the Festival, Slovenia 2016 
• Festival of Slovenian Films in Portorož: Vesna Award for the Best Documentary, Slovenia 2016 
• Med Film Festival in Rome, Italy 2016 
• Free Zone Film Festival, Serbia 2016 
• Mediterranean Short Film Festival, Italy 2016 
• Watch Docs, Poland 2016 
• Zagreb Dox, Croatia 2017 
• Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival, 2017 
• One World in Bucharest, Romania 2017 
• Vilnius International Film Festival, Lithuania 2017 
• Nijmegen International Short Film Festival, Netherlands 2017 
• Jeonju International Film Festival, Korea 2017 and others

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

In 2002 I made a feature film about two traffickers smuggling people into EU. Thirteen years later I decided to make a short film about lines of refugees crossing those exact same border accompanied by the police and soldiers carrying automatic rifles. When dealing with such a subject the author must ask themselves about the ethics of 'directing'. I decided on a 'no directing' approach - I used a static, 'Lumiere-style' camera, without direction or editing. Like an eerie remake of “The Arrival of a Train”.

SECTION

Short Competition 2017