Video on the Beach III

Video on the Beach III / FAMILY IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD  

Heirloom, Lucija Rosc, Slovenia, 2024, 24’19”, Severinin pas / Dog of a Famous Person, Jozo Schmuch, Croatia, 2024, 19’, Where the Log Went,Tara Caruso Bizjak, Slovenia, 2024, 10’12”, Sixty-seven Milliseconds, Fleuryfontaine, France, 2025, 15’, Grčke marelice / Greek Apricots, Jan Krevatin, Hrvaška, Slovenia, 2024, 20’, The Ninth Village, Gregor Kocjančič, Slovenia, 2025, 4’,  Žarko, razmazit ćeš dite! / Žarko, You Will Spoil the Child!, Veljko Popović, Milivoj Popović, Croatia, France, 2024, 13’37”

Family ties, whatever their nature, complex or affectionate, are the connective tissue of the films in Friday’s programme, allowing us to reflect on what it means to belong to a family and how close relationships are being built and broken. How our relationships are influenced by the place we live in and how our neighbourhoods are experienced socially and even linguistically. The film Heirloom is an affectionate document of the intergenerational love between a grandmother and her granddaughter. In a humorous way, the filmmaker presents her ambitious project of getting a new life for Grandma’s gold tooth. Another humorous and affectionate portrayal of a granddaughter’s relationship with her grandparents is the autobiographical animated film Žarko, You Will Spoil the Child!, which takes us back in time to the 1980s, to a family home in Split. Dog of a Famous Person is a comedy in which a mother and son find themselves caught up in an absurd plot hatched by the mother’s toxic partner – to steal Severina’s dog. The forging of new relationships in Greek Apricots is a fleeting and simple, yet lovely and honest process. On the other hand, Where the Log Went puts forth the jigsaw puzzle as a beautiful symbol of both the building and the unravelling of relationships. Sixty-seven Milliseconds outlines an event experienced by a group of friends in their own neighbourhood, a testimony about how police oppression and the surveillance society affect the existence of individuals in public space. To top it all off, The Ninth Village treats us to a comical overview of Slovenian place names.