Cinema Croatia:
Eastern Europe’s New Star
The Gene Siskel Film Center and the Consulate General of the Republic of Croatia, Chicago, in cooperation with the American Cinematheque and the Croatian Art, Media & Entertainment Organization (CAMEO), present the series Cinema Croatia: Eastern Europe’s New Star from September 3 through September 26. Six recent feature films, including two U.S. premieres, highlight the exciting growth of a new Eastern European cinema with a distinct national character in the small Republic of Croatia.
The series includes two colorful historical epics, THE HORSEMAN and THE LONG DARK NIGHT, each featuring lush landscapes, fine period detail, and a host of marvelous character actors. Fans of Goran Visjnic, the actor who has become the best-known Croatian star in the U.S. as a result of his role in the television series ER, will appreciate his heroic turn as the lead actor in THE LONG DARK NIGHT, a film he also produced. Visnjic is tentatively scheduled for an appearance on Saturday, September 24.
Dry humor, low-key satire, and freewheeling approach to narrative characterize other films in the series. Each is an incisive look at a time and place, from the comic impression of a small town anticipating an official visit from Tito in QUEEN OF THE NIGHT, to the eerie tales of the city of Split on New Year’s Eve in A WONDERFUL NIGHT IN SPLIT. SORRY FOR KUNG FU and WHAT IVA RECORDED, films garnering raves at recent European festivals, each take a cinema verité approach to story-telling.
-- Barbara Scharres
film descriptions
THE HORSEMAN
(KONJANIK)
2003, Branko Ivanda, Croatia, 136 min.
With Niksa Kuselj, Borko Peric
An epic story of star-crossed love set in 1747, when Croatia is ruled by the powerful Venetian Republic and neighboring Bosnia is an outpost of the Ottoman Empire, makes for a rousing adventure studded with rich historical detail. At the violent intersection of three cultures, two brothers fall on opposing sides of the religious and political divide. Quiet Ivan becomes an Orthodox priest, while hell-raising Petar is conscripted into the militia and converts to Islam. Petar’s forbidden attraction to the alluring veiled daughter of the Bey of Bosnia foreshadows tragedy of Shakespearian proportions. In Croatian with English subtitles. 35mm. (BS)
Saturday, September 3, 7:30 pm;
Monday, September 5, 5:30 pm
THE LONG DARK NIGHT
(DUGA MRACNA NOC)
2004, Antun Vrdoljak, Croatia, 200 min.
With Goran Visnjic, Goran Navojec
Charismatic Goran Visnjic (ER’s Dr. Luka Kovac) produces and stars in this sweeping ZHIVAGO-like tale that takes his hero Iva, a rural college student, from the tumultuous days of the rise of Nazism to the Machiavellian intrigues and disillusionment of the Tito era. Iva’s fun-loving childhood friend Mata joins the fascist Ustasha to become his nemesis, while Iva fights WWII on the side of the Communist partisans to face love, loss, and searing conflicts of conscience. History goes down easy in this sumptuously photographed 2004 Oscar submission. In Croatian with English subtitles. 35mm. (BS)
Goran Visnjic is tentatively scheduled to introduce the Saturday screening. Call 312-846-2600 after September 20 for confirmation.
Saturday, September 24, 7:00 pm;
Monday, September 26, 6:30 pm
QUEEN OF THE NIGHT
(KRALJICA NOCI)
2001, Branko Schmidt, Croatia, 95 min.
With Luka Dragic, Barbara Vickovic
Friday, September 16, 8:00 pm;
Saturday, September 17, 8:30 pm
U.S. Premiere!
SORRY FOR KUNG FU
(OPROSTI ZA KING FU)
2005, Ognjen Svilicic, Croatia, 73 min.
With Daria Lorenci, Filip Rados
After waiting out the Balkan conflict in Germany, Mirjana returns unmarried and pregnant to her war-torn village. Plans by her shocked parents to marry her off hurriedly are derailed when the birth brings an even more unwelcome surprise -- a bundle of joy with Asian features. Mirjana’s not talking, but everyone else is, in this satire on xenophobia with obvious parallels in troubles that, director Svilicic dryly notes, are rooted in “far smaller ethnic differences.” A critically acclaimed selection of the Berlin, Vancouver, and Warsaw international film festivals. In Croatian with English subtitles. 35mm. (BS)
Sunday, September 4, 6:15 pm;
Wednesday, September 7, 8:00 pm
U.S. Premiere!
WHAT IVA RECORDED
(STO JE IVA SNIMILA)
2004, Tomislav Radic, Croatia, 92 min.
With Anja Sovagovic-Despot, Ivo Gregurevic
A fifteenth birthday party gets off to a rocky start when birthday-girl Iva bonds with her surprise gift -- a video camera. Soon she’s shooting everything in sight, including her mother’s bouts with the bottle, a major family row, and the professional “escort” who shows up as her uncle Darko’s date. The party’s long-awaited special guest, a German businessman Iva’s dad hopes to hit up for money, turns the tables on his hosts as this cinema verit� drama skids into caustic comedy on a raft of mishaps. In Croatian with English subtitles. 35mm. (BS)
Saturday, September 10, 5:00 pm;
Monday, September 12, 8:00 pm
A WONDERFUL NIGHT IN SPLIT
(TA DIVNA SPLITSKA NOC)
2004, Arsen-Anton Ostojic, Croatia, 100 min.
With Mladen Vulic, Nives IvankovicV
“Careful camerawork turns lovely Split into an eerie city of dangerous shadows.” --Deborah Young, Variety
Three stories unfolding simultaneously on the ancient streets of the Adriatic port intersect in the two hours before midnight on New Year’s Eve. Alternately harsh and dreamy, gothic and hallucinatory, the film does justice to its mood-drenched setting in episodes that reel from suspense to mind-bending fantasy, while a stand-up comic conducts a raucous countdown in the public square. A drug-runner hits a snag running out on an affair; a frightened teenaged junkie resolves to earn her fix in an encounter with a black sailor; and two lovers in search of a bed find high-flying danger on an LSD trip. In Croatian with English subtitles. 35mm. (BS)
