Film awards

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International awards for Slovene film

• Slovene filmmakers Marko Šantić and Blaž Kutin won three prestigious prizes at the 2006 Sarajevo Film Festival, the biggest film festival in South Eastern Europe. The jury conferred the EFA/UIP Best Short Movie Award on Šantić, the Croatian-born student of the Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television (AGRFT), for his short fiction debut Good Luck Nedim. Scriptwriter and director Kutin was chosen as one of the three winners of the CineLink script and film project competition. Kutin, also the recipient of the New Talent in the European Union Award at the Cannes Film Festival 2006, was granted financial support for his Lara project, a story about a woman revaluing her life on her 60th birthday.

• Jan Cvitkovič's black comedy Odgrobadogroba ('Gravehopping') was selected as the Slovene candidate for the 2006 Foreign Language Film Oscar (announced by Association of Slovene Film Workers). Cvitkovič is best known for winning the Lion of the Future Award at the 2001 Venice Film Festival for his debut feature Kruh in mleko ('Bread and Milk'). Odgrobadogroba, produced by Stara Gara, features Gregor Bakovič, Drago Milinović, Sonja Savić, Mojca Fatur, Brane Grubar and Nataša Matjašec. It saw its world premiere in September 2005 at the 53rd International Film Festival in San Sebastian, where it received the prestigious Altadis New Directors Award for the best first and second film of the director. The film was subsequently voted best festival film in Warsaw, where it won the CentEast Award. Odgrobadogroba was also conferred Best Feature Film at the 2006 Eastern Europe Film Festival in Cottbus, Germany. 'From beginning to end, from birth to the grave, from laughter to crying, from love to murder, the film takes us on a risk-laden journey that demands courage from the director as well as the audience,' the main jury said. The prize of € 15,000 was donated by the Gesellschaft zu Warnehmung von Film- und Fernsehrechten from Munich. Finally, Odgrobadogroba was voted best film of the festival at the 2006 International Film Festival at Palić in Serbia. The jury granted the film the Golden Tower award because of its 'original intertwining of the human and the philosophical in telling stories about our unusually usual lives.'

• Igor Šterk's Uglaševanje ('Tuning') was screened at several film festivals in 2005, including Karlovy Vary (Czech Republic), Montreal (Canada) and Chicago (US). It was also shown at the Festival of Slovene Film. In November 2005 it won Best Feature Film award at the Mannheim Festival in Germany. Šterk's third feature won the award for its 'precise use of film language in the construction of a powerful visual narrative about the deconstruction of a middle class family'. Šterk's drama depicts the highs and lows of an intimate relationship between a couple in their late thirties who are not able to live together anymore, yet at the same time do not find the strength to separate. Šterk had previously competed in the Mannheim Festival of 1997 with his debut film Ekspres Ekspres ('Gone with the Train').

• Acclaimed Slovene actor Peter Musevski won Best Actor award at the 11th Sarajevo Film Festival of 2006 for his role in the Damjan Kozole-directed Delo osvobaja ('Labour Equals Freedom', 2005). Kozole's latest film is a tragi-comedy in which despair intertwines with humour, and in which optimism eventually defeats feelings of despair. Musevski plays Peter, a machine operator who has been sacked and is in search of a new job. Musevski was extensively awarded previously for his lead role in Bread and Milk, a drama which won its director Jan Cvitkovič the Lion of the Future Award in Venice in 2001.