Nandan to host city’s 1st Slovenian Film Festival
Kolkata: For the first time, Kolkata is set to host a Slovenian Film Festival where a set of four contemporary Slovenian films will be screened on February 15 and 16 at Nandan-III.
The festival is being jointly hosted by the Slovenian Embassy and the Forum for Film Studies and Allied Arts, led by eminent Bengali auteur Goutam Ghose. The typical characteristics of East European films are its historical elements and political oppression; two distinct features of East Europe. Slovenia gained its independence in 1991. Its themes are often far from what the majority of international viewers are accustomed to having watched Western cinema for decades.
However, departing from the trend, these set of four films are focused on contemporary themes entailing universal topics. One of the films to be screened — Gaja’s World — directed by Peter Bratusa, deals with the common problems of today’s young generation. The themes entail separation of parents, alienation in the family and the dangers of the Internet.
An 11-year-old Gaja introduces her unusual family and the world she lives in. After her mother’s departure to Africa on the mission of the ‘Doctors Without Borders’, her world undergoes a significant change.
Similarly, the film All Against All directed by Andrej Kosak, is a political drama with elements of a thriller that discusses politics, electoral fraud, and the decay of moral values, taking place in the fictional town of Rovte under the idyllic Alps. Franta, a corrupt mayor, is about to lose the election. After a TV debate, where he fails utterly, Franta calls his mistress Jozica in desperation. She advises him to seek the aid of Fleischmann, a criminal who is the only one capable of solving the problem on such short notice. After all, there are only four days left until the elections.
The film Everything Is Different by Metod Pevec explores the tension between the old and new ways of doing things in independent, post-Communist Slovenia, centred on a family dispute over an inheritance.
The free-spirited but emotionally troubled Frank (Janez Skof), still an idealist about now-discarded socialist ideology, returns home for the reading of his late father’s will.
The show timings are 4:30 pm and 5:30 pm on both days. Sheo Shankar Bagaria,
Honorary Consul, Consulate of Slovenia, Kolkata, will be present as the guest of honour while Ashoke Viswanathan, eminent Indian auteur and former dean of Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI) will inaugurate the festival on
February 15.
