Kino Otok – Isola Cinema has created a true festival community in just five days and for the twelfth time

The 12th international film festival Kino Otok – Isola Cinema concluded on Sunday with the screening of the film Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors at the Manzioli open-air cinema. A selection of films has moved with the programme Otok to Ljubljana to Kinodvor and Slovenska kinoteka.

Director of the festival Tanja Hladnik and film programme selector Varja Močnik accompanied the epic film Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors to the screen; the public got a chance to see the film through a 35-mm projector. Besides finishing the 12th international film festival Kino Otok – Isola Cinema, we also commemorated the 20th anniversary of Kinoteka’s activity. Its first director and one of the first island’s godfathers Silvan Furlan has a section dedicated to him, Silvan’s bay.

Since the grand opening on Wednesday, the 1st of June, screenings from different places and times, different contents, genres, sings and forms, took place at the festival programme. One of the films that impressed the most at this year’s island’s edition are without a doubt For One More Hour with You from the Italian master documentary maker Alina Marazzi and films Fish Tail and What now? Remind me from the Portuguese director Joaquim Pinto.

We hosted directors and other makers of feature films or short films from the programme and many authors of short films from the section Video on the beach at the 12th edition of the international film festival Kino Otok – Isola Cinema. Alongside Pinto and Marazzi we also hosted the Italian director Guiseppe Gaudino, the first Ethiopian director to be presented in Cannes Yared Zeleke, Austrian master of black-and-white glimmering look Peter Schreiner, legendary Serbian “črnovalovec” Želimir Žilnik, Serbian producer Sarita Matijević, producer of Alina Marazzi’s films Gianfilippo Pedote, Latvian master of the seventh art Laila Pakalnina, Spanish documentary maker Eloy Domínguez Serén, Slovenian experimental film maker Davorin Marc, Italian director Luca Chinaglia, Latvian director Raitis Ābele and godfathers of films Mate Dolenc (godfather of Fish Tail), Breda Pečan (godmother of Lamb), Nataša Tič Ralijan (godmother of Mountain) and Metod Pevec (Godfather of Anna). Alongside films we also hosted creators from other film festivals, Admir Ćulumarević, manager of the leading festival of musical documentary film in southeast Europe – Solo Positivo from Opatija, and Paola Bristot, programme manager of the Piccolo festival dell’animazione festival of animated film in Trieste.

Young film enthusiasts were impressed at the Submarine by Saturday’s and Sunday’s Fresh Film Catch where students from primary and high school featured their work. The auditorium was fully packed at the screening of the Ethiopian film Lamb, which was presented in the Manzioli open-air cinema by the festival guest Yared Zeleke – young viewers awarded him with a loud applause at the end of the film.

Great energy united festival guests, visitors and the team in a unique space of meetings; film creators – attendants of TorinoFilmLab and Re-Act workshops joined them at Manzioli palace and in Isola’s galleries. When the night fell, Lighthouse connected all of them into a festival community with a musical programme.

Unstable weather did not infringe the execution of the programme nor had a major effect on the visit, because the island’s team is ready for grey sky every year. Film events were moved to substitute locations: from Manzioli square to Isola’s House of Culture, Manzioli palace offered shelter to short meterage section Video on the beach, and a tent was set up for nights on the Lighthouse which was willing to accept all those visitors wishing for a good music. The Thursday’s night of the second section of Video on the beach kept the audience of a fully packed room on their seats for three hours, despite the move to the dry Manzioli palace.  


Films from the festival programme in Ljubljana until Tuesday

Sunday’s conclusion represented the last act of Isola’s part of the festival, but the opportunities for viewing of certain films continue. Under the section of the programme called Otok in Ljubljana, Ljubljana’s Kinodvor screened a sweetheart of Island’s audience Fish Tail from Joaquim Pinto and Nuno Leonel, and in Slovenska kinoteka İlker Savaşkurt’s film Balad of exiles: Yilmaz Güney was screened yesterday alongside Pinto’s debut film from 1987 Tall stories. Coming up are Argentinian documentary essay Toponymy by Jonathan Perel (9th of June at 19.00) and Alina Marazzi’s For One More Hour with You (14th of June at 18.30) which is well known to Isola’s public.