Four River Friday is a new section of the Croatian Film Association and Cinema Club Karlovac, in which we want to give you insight into the further journeys of films awarded at last year’s Four River Film Festival and Youth Film Festival, as well as insight into the achievements and new projects of their authors. In this section we want to show you how much we care about our filmmakers and how we follow their work and artistic development with interest, and we want to create a space for them to promote their achievements outside of our festivals’ programs.
Stella Roso won the award for best freestyle film at the 2020 Youth Film Festival in Karlovac with her experimental film Listen with Your Eyes. Her film is based on a variety of shots combined with sounds completely opposite to them, in which a continuous gradation reveals the fundamental essence of antithesis as a concept. “The captivating, seemingly paradoxical title brings attention to the very elements that make this film great. In a word – masterful!” commented Ana Đordić, a professor of Croatian language and philosophy, who is also one of the long-term members of the selection committee of the Festival and a co-founder and lecturer in the Film EDUcation program at Zagreb’s Tuškanac Cinema. Professional cinematographer Dinka Radonić says this about the film: “By deliberately creating a certain feeling of vagueness, the author presents her video as a sort of stream of consciousness.”
In our interview, Stella told us where she gets the most ideas for her films, and we also touched upon the topic of the challenges the coronavirus pandemic posed for the film industry. We also found out that she is a first-year student of film editing at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb and we are sure that we will see many films directed by her in the future.
We follow Stella and other young promising filmmakers every friday in our Four River Friday section.
1. How did your love of film start?
My love of film as a medium came about a long time ago, and it developed even more in high school. As a student of Fine Arts High School in Split, majoring in photography, I had classes related to film and video and the opportunity to get acquainted with the process of making films. As a very sociable person, I immediately knew that I wanted to be a part of a film crew in the future and that that was my path. I enrolled at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb, I am currently a first-year student of film editing and I am really enjoying this journey toward my dreams coming true.
2. What was it like for you to participate in last year’s online Youth Film Festival and how do you go about making films during a pandemic?
Making films during a pandemic is a truly unique and challenging process for all filmmakers. Covid-19 appeared somewhere in the middle of working on my film Listen with Your Eyes. School was transferred online, and since only two weeks of lockdown were announced, I went home to Pelješac (a peninsula in southern Croatia), taking a camera with me, just in case. Two weeks turned into two months, and the film was supposed to be finished during that time. Slightly deprived of equipment, I turned to artistic and creative thinking more than anything, and in the end I made a film that I am extremely proud of, given the situation.
3. How do you choose ideas for your films?
I mostly find ideas for films in everyday life. I am generally impressed by everyday situations that surround us and that we perceive in an overly primitive way, in my opinion. I am a supporter of experimental film and of seeing the world through a different perspective, which can be inferred from my film. I try to incorporate my own “signature” in each of my works. In addition to all this, I am also impressed by the way our brains work, and I try to give the viewer complete freedom in watching my films and understanding them.
4. How are your films coming along this year? Do you plan on participating in the Youth Film Festival?
I am not currently in the process of making a film that is entirely under my direction, I am more focused on projects related to the Academy and private projects. On the one hand, I am sincerely sorry that I will not be submitting a film to the Four River Film Festival this year, but I think there is time. If we make a film worth showing at the Festival, I will definitely recommend submitting it as a team. I hope this is just the beginning of my filmmaking career and that memorable films are yet to come.
