Pula Film Festival
2004; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 32; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1543-3404
Autores Tópico(s)Balkan and Eastern European Studies
ResumoHolding a national and international film festival in a 3000-year-old arena in Pula, Croatia, and let culture replace war cannot but raise attention. The ancient coliseum, has seen many human victims, today this arena still witnesses sacrifices but they are of a financial nature, and for the sake of a film festival, a festival celebrating its fiftieth anniversary, which is quite an achievement for such a small country as Croatia. In 2003 the festival's special guests were Jeremy Irons, John Malkovich and Goran Bregovic. The festival showed nine films of the official national program of the Croatian feature film industry and ten films for the international music film program. The Golden Arena Award for Best Croatian Film went to a wellknown Croatian film director Zrinko Ogresta for his drama Here. As put in the words of Luciano Delbianco, PhD, Mayor of Pula at the award ceremony. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Pulal Arena shaped the relationship between film and Pula, offering numerous different views of the world, written by the hands of artists that, in the last 50 years witnessed the growth of numerous generations. Encounters of viewers and film artists in the unforgettable and unique atmosphere of the ancient Amphitheater are a special experience and one of the symbols of this town. This year's jubilee 50th festival, like all previous festivals, joyfully welcomes new films and the retrospective of the best works that marked the previous five decades. Along with works of renewed authors and actors of the big screen, we will see works of the young ones it is the energy that will permanently stay inscribed in people's hearts. This is the secret of the festival, of its past and its wished for future. A year later, Jeremy Irons is acting in Matilda, the latest film by Croatian film director Nina Mimica, on the Adriatic Coast. Also on the cast is a very well-known Serbian actor living in France, Miki Manojlovic. Irons accepted a part in a non-commercial, non-English film directed by an anonymous author. Mr. Irons explained that verbal understanding is not the most important thing in a film. It is also about the talent and imagination of the film director, a meeting between actor and director that happens on a more instinctive level rather than an intellectual one. He is also convinced that making pictures in Hollywood because of the money, glamour and glory is often like prostitution. Matilda is not just a love story but a story about change and recovery, myth and contrast between two mentalities, the Balkan and the Western ways of life. Irons is playing a UN soldier who is a typical Westerner, a man with lost illusions, tired of the fast life, asking himself what he has accomplished. The crucial point in the film comes when he meets a free-spirited girl who lives in a different and isolated world. This world is her defense system from the real world that she is surrounded with, a tragic one, because of the civil war. The film happens in two days and one night and depicts a man experiencing a deep existential crisis. The most popular guest of Pula's 50th Film Festival was the musician Goran Bregovic. This Yugoslavian artist has had a successful international career. He is an exceptional musician of mixed origins: Serbian and Romani [Romani people are one of the many Gypsy ethnies] brass folk music. Besides his musical solo career. Bregovic has had a very interesting film music career [Arizona Dream and La Reine Margot]. What brought Bregovic to the 2003 Pula Film Festival was the music he composed for the Norwegian film, part of the festival's international film program. In Unni Straume's for Weddings and Funerals [Musikk for bryllup oq beqravelserl] Bregovic also plays the role of a refugee from Serbia. As the composer of the film score, Bregovic created an unusual cultural crossover. Music in the films of now ex-Yugoslavia, has a completely different purpose. [In the past] It was treated as the helpful issue to save a film. …
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