Slovenian Film Retrospective: XX; Nighthawk; That’s How the Summer Ended; Als ich tot war

Special screening (Slovenian contemporary shorts + Lubitsch from the vaults of the Slovenian Cinematheque):

Vasja Lebarič, Julij Zornik, Slovenia, 2022, DCP, 1.85, colour, 11', no dialogue

An animated experimental film that, in line with the process of its creation, so the chemical and thermomechanical procedures, includes coincidences as its intrinsic part and thus tries to get out of conventional animation and narration.

Nighthawk (Nočna ptica)

Špela Čadež, Slovenia/Croatia, 2016, DCP, colour, 8'45'', English subtitles

A badger lies motionless on a local road. A police patrol approaches the body in the dark. They soon realise that the animal is not dead; the badger is dead drunk from overripe pears! When the police attempt to drag the creature off the road, he wakes up and things take a strange turn.

That’s How the Summer Ended (Tako se je končalo poletje)

Matjaž Ivanišin, Slovenia/Italy/Hungary, 2022, DCP, colour, 12'30'', English subtitles

At the end of the summer, while preparations for an air show are taking place in the sky, a man and a woman go to a body of water. But the arrival of a legendary aerobatic pilot will not be the main event of the day for them.

When I Was Dead (Als ich tot war)

Ernst Lubitsch, Germany, 1916, DCP (shot on 35mm), 1.33, B&W (tinted), silent, 36', English subtitles

Starring Lubitsch himself in the lead role, this marital farce unfolds at a breath-taking pace. He plays a young husband who, after a long night out playing chess, is kicked out by his wife and her unpleasant mother. Assumed dead after the discovery of a suicide note, he reappears in disguise when his mother-in-law and “widow” hire a new butler. Though rudimentary compared to the marriage comedies he would make in just a few years, When I Was Dead is now treasured as one of Lubitsch’s earliest surviving works.

The film was believed to be lost until 1994, when a print was found by the Slovenian Cinematheque in Ljubljana.

Live musical accompaniment: composed by – Urban Koder; performers – Andrej Goričar (piano), Jakob Bobek (clarinet) and Jan Gričar (saxophone).