Friday meetings with authors; the Slovenian premiere of Yugo Goes to America

From Armenia to Austria, from poetry to the cult classic Yugo… Friday’s program at Kino Otok brings together film stories and their creators. The day will feature numerous meet-and-greets with filmmakers, a midday gathering with festival guests High Noon at Largo pri Špini, where a film and poetry evening titled Poetry in Images and Words is also scheduled for the evening. At the Arrigoni Open-Air Cinema, we’re looking forward to the Slovenian premiere of the documentary Yugo Goes to America, which explores the meaning of failure, identity, and shared memory through the lens of a legendary car.

Screenings with guests at Art Cinema Odeon and the House of Culture

At 10:00 a.m., Art Cinema Odeon will screen the second feature film by the outstanding Croatian director Hana Jušić, God Will Not Help (Bog neće pomoći, Croatia, Italy, Romania, Greece, France, Slovenia, 2025, 137’), and at 1:00 p.m., joined by Thomas Zandegiacomo Del Bela, artistic director of the Zebra Poetry Film Festival, we will watch and discuss a selection of the best short films from the festival, which has been bringing together the worlds of film and poetry for over twenty years and is being brought to Otok by its organizer, Berlin’s Haus für Poesie. At 3:00 p.m., we’ll travel to Armenia with the documentary My Armenian Phantoms (France, Armenia, Qatar, 2025, 75’) we’ll travel to Armenia, and in a discussion, the filmmaker Tamara Stepanyan will explain how she drew on colorful and diverse archival material and her own memories to create an impressive cultural and artistic legacy.

We will also be joined by Marie Luise Lehner, director of the film If You Are Afraid You Put Your Heart into Your Mouth and Smile (Austria, 2025, 87′), who has created “a film about the bond between a mother and her child, as well as the bond between people in general. About deafness and the search for one’s true self.” The screening is accessible for the deaf and hard of hearing, and the multifaceted Marie Luise Lehner will also reveal more in a discussion about her work with the feminist punk band Schapka.

At 1:00 p.m. at the House of Culture, in collaboration with the Slovenian Cinematheque, The Virgin of Pessac (France, 1968, 65’), Jean Eustache’s first documentary and an almost ethnographic comedy, which, in May 1968 during the French student protests, closely followed the century-old tradition of the annual selection of the “most virtuous” girl in the village. At 3:00 p.m., there will be a screening of The Orphan (László Nemes, Hungary, France, Germany, UK, 2025, 132’) about a boy named Andor who, following the 1956 Hungarian Uprising, is confronted with dark family secrets in an occupied country. At 6:00 p.m., we continue with a cinematic portrait of projectionist Hussein Darbi in the Palestinian film Habibi Hussein (Alex Bakri, Palestine, Germany, Saudi Arabia, 2025, 96’), a tribute to all those who, even under occupation, are dedicated to preserving film culture.

Slovenian Premiere of the Documentary Yugo Goes to America at the Arrigoni Open-Air Cinema

Yugo Goes to America (Yugo ide u Ameriku, Serbia, Croatia, 2026), directed by Aleksa Borković and Filip Grujić—who will also introduce the film at the screening—tells the story of four young Belgraders who travel across the U.S. in a Yugo, a car once dubbed the worst in history. They travel through 24 states from New York to Los Angeles, all in an effort to find an answer to the question: what does it mean to be the worst? “We were born in the ’90s and grew up with the Yugo that our parents drove while the country was falling apart. In Western popular culture, the Yugo, just like Yugoslavia, has become synonymous with collapse, conflict, and movie villains,” said the filmmakers, who will be joining us in Izola.

Video on the Beach III: Changing Space and a Film and Poetry Evening at Largo pri Špini

At 9:00 p.m., the third installment the Video on the Beach: Changing Space will be screened at the Lighhouse Park. It explores movements through public spaces in various cities, political and social shifts in countries and communities, and personal shifts determined by psychological and physical states. The thematic program of short films will be accompanied by discussions with the filmmakers, and the following films will be screened: Fačuk (Maida Srabović, Croatia, Slovenia, 2025, 12’47’’), Peaceful Protest (Toma, Slovenia, 2025, 4’57’’), Preventive Attack (Ajda Zupan, Slovenia, Jordan, 2026, 10’51’’), Some Things Are a Sign, But Some Aren’t (Danaja Kurnik, Slovenia, 2025, 4’20’’), How to Listen to Fountains (Eva Sajanová, Slovakia, 2025, 10’07’’), Deconstruction (Neda Ivanović, Slovenia, 2025, 3’09’’), A Fistful of Feathers (Emanuel Krajnc, Slovenia, 2026, 17’16’’), S The Wolf (Sameh Alaa, France, Egypt, 2025, 10’30’’), No Skate! (Guil Sela, France, 2025, 24’), Caries (Aline Höchli, Switzerland, 2025, 9’41’’ ).

Poetry in Images and Words (film and poetry evening, 60’, in Slovenian and Italian) is a program of short films that will be screened at Largo pri Špini at 9:30 p.m. and were inspired by the poetry of the poet whose name appears in the title. They were filmed by young filmmakers under the mentorship of directors Paolo Comuzzi, Jan Cvitkovič, and Maja Prettner as part of the project Poetry of Dialects and the Landscape of Images, and the screening will be accompanied by a poetry reading featuring the works of Maurizio Benedetti and others.

And So Much More… Kontrapunkt and KIŠD x KO: Nights of Lights

Before dark, let yourself be swept away to the Drat Gallery. We’ll meet there at 8:00 p.m. for Kontrapunkt: a multimedia installation by the Format Art Society that, through video fragments, spatial elements, and research notes, examines everyday gestures as unconscious routines.

The screening will be followed by the Nights of Lights music program at the Lighthouse, which we bring to Kino Otok every evening until late at night in collaboration with KIŠD. Joining us will be singer-songwriter Kiki (live), whom the media have described as “a sorceress of intimate stories,” and whose music has been called “magical folk-pop.” She will be followed by Mima & Späti (DJ set), who will bring a lively club experience to Izola.