In Jean Renoir’s antiwar masterpiece La grande illusion (1937), Erich von Stroheim presents to cinema’s history one of its most remarkable charachters in terms of moral stature. Captain Von Rauffenstein is a German officer who, in the frame of WWI, runs a castle-turned-into-prisoners’ camp, having been forced to leave the frontline because of his infirmity. Raised as a soldier at the Prussian old school (with all that it implies, especially in terms of pride and respect), he’s defined on one side by the frustration he experiences for he’s been removed from the hot spot, on the other by the chivalrous attitude he has towards his enemies.

On the 8th edition of the anticommercial masterpiece Kino Otok, I’m afraid I’m presenting one of the most remarkable examples of misplacement. Asked to move from the hot spot to remain behind the lines (to be clear: from writing to help others writing), during these days I’ve sometimes experienced the feeling of the festival passing me by, just as Von Rauffenstein feels war is passing him by. And possibly it’s not just a personal feeling, as “you’re candidate n.1 for ‘Ghost of the festival’”, Vlado told me last night. But the notation hasn’t to do only with the geographical / physical aspect, it’s also a matter of “hyerarchical” role. As an amateur writer, I’ve never been trained at any (old, Prussian, whatever…) proper school, so it may prove hard trying to put your experience in some perspective and get a pattern out of it, not to mention the difficulty in understanding where the borders between providing guidance, teaching lessons and giving orders lie. Are you enjoying reading the Daily Otok blog? Have you liked the contents you’ve found on our brochures? Well, as novelists use to write in their thanksgiving notes, if you did it’s because of these guys’ work. If you didn’t, it’s because of me being their mentor. After all I feel like I still belong on the “learning side”, and they sure ain’t less skilled than I am. So I’m still not sure whether, now that the festival’s over, they may have reason to say they’ve got something from me.

Ph.: Blanca Selas Chao

But here comes a lesson from J.L. Guerin’s Guest: the value you place on your experience when you go to a festival – no matter the role you (are supposed to) fit – doesn’t rely only on what’s officially written on your accreditation. It’s also a matter of gathering, as Vlado said, and hanging around together, which means that the nights by the lighthouse have saved my days (in the office). After having come to an agreement with myself on not going to bed before 2 am, I’ve supplied beers and stories about the border, while enjoying hearing about their background and projects, listening to their own music, drinking their liqueurs, exchanging high fives with the guys, staring at the girls, dancing with both… and so on. So I hope that at least as far as human relationships are concerned, we can say we’re square.

And if we’re not…Well, Von Rauffenstein, after he’s had no choice but to kill the French officer who was trying to escape from the castle, pays homage to him by leaving a flower on his body. As I doubt I’ll have the time to go to a flower shop before we take leave of one another, I hope as many of these guys as possible will come back next year, not only for me to repay their expectations but also to get back spending some good time together.

Piervittorio Vitori

While trying to write a little resume of my impressions about the movies I’ve watched at Kino Otok, a few main themes popped up. The first question was: how much our “real” lives are influenced by the movies we watch? A clue, that pretty much reflects my own thoughts about it, came from the Indian director Gurvinder Singh, the author of Alms for the blind horse, a touching piece that leads us gently through a sad day in the life of a Punjabi family. With a subtle interplay between sounds,  images and very few words by the actors, he makes us feel as almost if we were walking the same streets and hearing the unspoken thoughts of the characters on the screen….

Experiencing more closely the different faraway places and the stories of the people that inhabit them, is the fil rouge that connects  all the other movies I saw at the festival, too. As well as, of course, the all-encompassing idea of death. Speaking of which, I got an interesting quote from the above mentioned Indian movie: “If the soul is eternal, than what is death? isn’t it just a part of life?” Definitely, as in “real life” so in the movies, life and death intermingle and give us the needed dynamic and perspective. For example, the movie Simple Life brings us into a hospice in Hong Kong, very gently reminding us of the truth that “death awaits us all”, and making us realize our fragility and basic sameness,  terminally erasing all our differences. It’s that constant, more or less conscious presence that  follows us and finally stops this crazy carousel we call life (so well and humorously depicted in Jacques Tati’s classic Playtime we saw on the test screening the day before the festival’s official opening).
Of course, on festivals you can pick just few of the offered titles, and not being able to see more movies is one of the major frustrations. Among the many promising new authors, I’ve only checked the work of the “Belgrade Now” group, four talented students from the Belgrade film academy. They all showed great creativity and originality, but At least we met by Marko Grba Singh – a story about one of their local vagabonds / street philosophers, Zoran Popović-Papke, who died soon after the shooting – impressed me the most. “I always come where my soul is”, says he.
Although it’s still not over, I’m sure my peak festival experience has been meeting the world famous Mongolian singer Urma Chahar -Tugchi. The 2 Horses of Genghis Khan is a deeply touching documentary about her quest for the almost lost verses of an ancient epic song of her people, by which the movie got titled. Born and raised in a family of herdsmen and excellent singers in the Ordos region of Inner Mongolia, Urna heard and learned a lot of songs and stories from her beloved grandmother. The sad truth the film talks about, very powerfully but without any fuss, bitterness or remorse towards the Chinese authorities, is that they ruthlessly exploit and destroy the Ordos beautiful land, digging for gold, gas and other profitable resources. Surrendered to their destiny, which during the “cultural revolution” included the destruction of their music instruments and the persecution even for just singing their old songs, the real singers and shamans of Ordos are almost lost. That makes the scenes of Urna’s encounter with the old lady singer, who hasn’t been singing for more than 50 years, even more touching…

Thanks god it is true, as they say in the movie, that “the singer never forgets his song” and, I should add,  the free spirit of the wide planes of Mongolia that brought it to life. For those of you who enjoy music more than words and images, here’s a special bonus treat. Give yourself a minute for this magical trip through Urna’s amazing soundscape:

The last film I saw yesterday on the Manzioli square (Shun Li and the Poet by Andrea Segre), in a way engirdeled my Kino Otok adventure. After this week’ short excursion around the world, through movies, music and international learn&work& play “mingling with the good people I met”, it somehow brought me back home. Although set in the Italian coastal town of Chioggia, the Mediterannean mentality so well depicted in the movie felt like homecoming. The movie, in which Croatian actor Rade Šerbedžija portrays a local fisherman, depicts his tender friendship with a Chinese girl.  Half way through the film we learn “he’s a stranger, too”, since 30 years before he moved to Chioggia from Pula, my hometown. For me, it was a reminder that here the farewell moment is near. Soon, well all go our own ways, enriched with new great memories and experienced sensations. La vita è bella! Zelo sem Vam hvaležna, Izolani in Izolanke! (and big thanks to all the Otok daily crew, of course! )

Daniela Knapić

The stressful preparation days and the first half of the festival are behind them, so Marko Viduka, the marketing director of the festival, and his hospitality team can breath much more easily. »It’s quite a relief” he tells us, “after the opening night the pressure is over. All the major things are done, the background is up to date, everything just works fine & we’re looking forward to see some good films.”

When asked if there are some problems, Marko first replies: “Let’s just enjoy the festival now, and we can discuss the problems later”, but than he adds that, of course,  weird situations cannot be avoided, but they are solved one by one as they appear. Due to the difficult economic situation they too had some setbacks: for example, some of the major sponsors withdrew their support just few days before the opening, a circumstance that caused an easily immaginable panic among the organizers. Yet somehow they managed to find replacements, and now they have in front of them few  more smooth and enjoyable tasks, like welcoming the guests, showing them around, organizing parties and such. While at their office we also meet the chef cook  Kristian Errera. Everyday at the kitchen of the local parish, kindly put at their disposal by the local priest, he and his coleague Raitis Korts cook for some 100 volonteers / festival helpers. Here’s their story:

(note: this is my first editing exercise. On the camera: Vanja Ujčić, big thanks to him J)

Daniela Knapić

If you have been a participant of any kind to the festival, you must have probably seen dozens of people with these ‘staff’ cards hanging around their neck. And in that case, it’s possible that you have as well seen a bunch of English-speaking youngsters carrying cameras around and filming almost everything their hungry eyes can handle:  from the concerts to your little child eating ice-cream, from an interview with (what looks like) a movie director to a close shot of your left ear when you are chilling out in a terrace. And, if you are one of those who watch the films at Manzioli Square you probably have seen the short films shot just before the main projections. Well, that’s us. Now, think about a bunch of grown-up-looking toddlers in a huge kindergarten without teachers. Again, that’s us, and Izola is our gigantic playground.

Ph.: Blanca Selas Chao

For our learning, we were told to film, to photograph, to talk, to write whatever we wanted, with the only condition of being creative. We were set free and told to mold our freedom as we wished. Just like toddlers do, we opened ourselves to this huge world of colors and sensations, and filled our experimenting pleasure tank to the maximum. At the beginning it was all blooming and explosive: we touched everything, went anywhere, asked no one; we had so many projects, so many ideas to develop, so many great minds fully thrown in them, but to canalize all this energy in one only solid way is such a hard task. As one said, put Da Vinci and Picasso aside and try to make them to work together: it’s such a genius idea, but insanely impossible. Close shot or open shot, journalism or literature, documentary or fiction, universalism or experimentalism.

Thesis. Antithesis. Synthesis? Barely.

We experimented, we failed; we experimented again, we failed again. Energies fade, bright faces shade. But at the end of the day, nothing of this really matters: what we came to do is to discover human beings through the experience of cinema, to use our eyes and ears and then our minds and souls, and vice versa. When we sit around a few beers, we draw our conclusions, see where we failed and when we were in the right way; in a nutshell, how human we are. And then we get ready to fail again the next day. But I’m sure we will have enjoyed the festival as much as you did.

Bruno Salgado Berzal