The 52nd Pula Film Festival presents seven new Croatian features, four of them comedies dealing with topical subjects and characters, such as the Hague indictees and witnesses, crooks big and small, semiliterate Mafiosos, adulterers and primitives, men on the verge of a nervous breakdown. There are also nostalgic stories from old Zagreb and those about family breakdowns, but also stories taken from football fans’ lives. The national programme is a veritable generational spectrum: from the tireless veteran Hadžić, to Radić and Šorak, and Hitrec, Hribar and Šovagović, to the youngest trio Matić-Jurić-Nuić.
In addition to the traditional programme of new Croatian features, the Festival will pay its dues to Croatian film heritage. The restoration of a national title is a cultural event in today’s Europe, yet this costly and technically very complex preservation of Croatian film classics is often greeted by media silence in this country. The Festival’s new programme, Time Machine, attempts to point out the value of restored films for new generations, offering an opportunity to discuss these significant achievements with their creators, or their collaborators. This year’s Time Machine presents six features restored by the Croatian Cinemathéque over the past year and a half, with an introductory lecture by its director, Dr. Mato Kukuljica, comments by the restorer, Ernest Gregl, and discussions with the creative teams, hosted by the film critic and director Petar Krelja. The Homage programme highlights the recipients of Lifetime Achievement awards in cinema, Krsto Papić, Vladimir Tadej and Ivica Vidović. Also introduced is the Matinee, featuring the now-neglected Croatian children’s films, as an invitation for the youngest viewers to come and enjoy the Festival.
The Croatian films will be screened in Pula in the context of European and international independent cinema –non-Hollywood productions. A withdrawal into the national boundaries and an insularisation of the festival would have been adverse both to the Festival and to Croatian cinema as a whole. Moreover, at a time when Croatia is seriously attempting to become a member of the European Union, an increase in the European and international character of the national film festival has a relevance that goes beyond the art of cinema and cultural co-operation.
The international programme consists of 14 highly-praised foreign films, among them award winners at the festivals in Venice, Berlin, Cannes, San Sebastian, Rio de Janeiro and Viareggio, but also some less noticed films, but valuable achievements nonetheless. This section is divided into the PoPular programme for a wider audience, with seven films in the Arena, and the cinéphile programme with seven films in the Italian Community building, divided into two: this year’s Europolis features young filmmakers from Italy, Hungary and Switzerland, and Meridians offers films from the farthest regions of the globe, from China, Iraq and Iran, to Brazil.
Thematically central to the PoPular programme, and the international selection as a whole, is the motif of the Father and Son: from the sale of a son in L’Enfant, the double rejection in Napola, and the disappointment in The Beat My Heart Skipped, to the discovery of a hitherto unknown son and the father’s attempts to redeem the past in The King, Transamerica and Broken Flowers. The post-war A Midwinter Night’s Dream, thematically close to us, is the only exception to the motif, but its subject is in every way closer to the Europolis and Meridians programmes, which extend the subject matter of the PoPular programme to an exploration of the Crisis of the Family. While the rifts and sutures within the family are only emotional in the Chinese Peacock, they become violent in the Brazilian Contra todos, whereas the Iranian Turtles Can Fly follows the loves and hates in a very young family. Europolis shows how a son is forced to save his family by assuming a father’s role (Vento di terra); a meeting with a father will move a son to save his broken family in Dealer; while Mein Name ist Bach not only features the famous composer’s relationship with his sons, but also intrigues with its depiction of King Frederick’s relationship with his father, who has taken away that which was dearest to him.
Competing for the award of Pula’s first International Critics’ Jury are all the titles in the international programme, with the exception of the homage to Jim Jarmusch – an omnibus of his short subjects created over the past two decades. A special treat is the animated short, Destino – the collaboration of Walt Disney and Salvador Dalí, abandoned six decades ago, and completed only recently.
The rich programme of as many as fifty titles is completed by the award-winners from the national short subject festival, Dani hrvatskog filma, the promotions of the books by Ante Peterlić, Enes Midžić, Dragan Rubeša and David Bordwell, and the presentations of Cinelink, Eurimages, the Berlinale Forum programme, the Central and East European festival goEast, and the International Federation of Film Critics, FIPRESCI.
The Roman Arena, one of the largest screening venues in the world, the tripartite national programme, and a rich and varied foreign selection with its international jury and guests, are slowly returning Pula to its deserved place on the festival map of the world, where it was first placed by Mario Rotar back in 1954.
Zlatko Vidačković
Artistic Director of the Pula Film Festival