The Edison Cinema will open its doors on September 9th and 10th. The first events that will be held in the cinema are the 28th Youth Film Festival and the 16th Four River Film Festival, from September 12th to 16th, and the regular cinema program starts on September 17th.
Karlovac, September 7th – the first Croatian VR cinema – the Edison Cinema, a multimedia center for cultural and tourist content, after the process of its revitalization, opens its doors on September 9th and 10th, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. The first events that will be held in the cinema are the 28th Youth Film Festival and the 16th Four River Film Festival, from September 12th to 16th, and the regular cinema program starts on September 17th.
The Edison Cinema in Karlovac closed its doors 16 years ago, but now it’s back and better than ever. The upcoming editions of the Four River Film Festival and the Youth Film Festival will take place in the Edison Cinema in Karlovac, a true gem of film history. This cinema testified to Karlovac’s dedication to urban culture and love of film.
The 28th Youth Film Festival and the 16th Four River Film Festival, organized by the Croatian Film Association and Cinema Club Karlovac, will be held from September 12th to 16th in Karlovac, which will once again become the temporary centre of youth filmmaking.
The mentioned events were presented at today’s press conference on the Edison Cinema plateau. The media were addressed by Ivan Gojmerac, director of the Edison Cinema, Suzana Šnajdar from the Technical Culture Community of the City of Karlovac and Karlovac County, Marina Burić from the Tourist Board of the City of Karlovac, Mayor of the City of Karlovac Damir Mandić, Head of the Administrative Department for Education of the Karlovac County Marija Šćulac, Secretary of the CFA Tatjana Aćimović and Ksenija Sanković, coordinator of the Festivals.
I am glad to invite you to the Open Days, which will be held on September 9th and 10th from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. We would really like as many of you as possible to come and see the interior of the Edison Cinema. We will play a documentary film about the cinema created during its revitalization project. The Open Days will be followed by the Youth Film Festival and Four River Film Festival, and from the 17th of September a regular cinema program will start. These are important days for all the people of Karlovac, as well as for film lovers, so we will do as much as we can to create a good atmosphere for them, said Ivan Gojmerac, director of the Edison Cinema.
First of all, congratulations on what is surely the most beautiful cinema in Croatia. I am very glad that Karlovac got its cinema. We are very happy that the first events held here will be Festivals of high school films, which are completely free. I would like to remind you of the fact that for many years high school students have shown great interest and support for the Festivals, and there are more and more films submitted each year. This year we had as many as 1,447 sumbissions. Equally important is the fact that showing films online has proven just as valuable and effective. We had as many as 308,000 users last year. We are very glad that this year’s competition program will take place in the Edison Cinema and the cinema will start its program with young people, said Tatjana Aćimović, secretary of the Croatian Film Association.
Each year I am amazed by the enthusiasm of young people, the eagerness for innovation and the enthusiasm with which they approach the promotion of the City, the promotion of themselves and the inclusion of an ever increasing number of films and participants. As the Technical Culture Community, we are extremely glad to be part of this great story and in the future we will support the work of young people. I want the Festivals to have not half as many films, but a 100% more films next year, because now we have our cinema and we will be able to show everyone what our young people are working on, said Suzana Šnajdar, secretary of the Technical Culture Community of the City of Karlovac and Karlovac County.
This is a really special moment for all of us. Tourism and film are irreversibly connected. I am sure that many people share my gratitude and pride for being a part of this important project. The Tourist Board of Karlovac was a partner and for the past two years has tried to be as helpful as possible in order for us to stand here today and talk about this. The film industry is also supported by tourism at the national level. The contents of the creative and cultural industries are recognized as one of the development elements in the evolution of year-round tourism through the national development strategy. When we talk about Karlovac, these film festivals are an important part of Karlovac’s cultural and touristic offer. They create an additional motive for coming here, encourage the promotion of the City, and are also high-quality content. Although we are talking about two festivals, I would like to emphasize the festival that promotes one of the symbols of our city in its name, and that is the Four River Film Festival.A few years ago, our four rivers were the most searched for term on the Tourist Board of Karlovac’s website, and I am sure that this Festival has contributed to that. The tourist signs have been installed and I’m sure everyone will find their way to the Edison Cinema. All that remains for us to do is be good hosts and delight our guests so they come back to us again, said Marina Burić, director of the Tourist Board of the City of Karlovac.
A few years after the closing of the regular cinema program, a part of the accompanying program of our Festivals was held at the Edison Cinema, for the last time in 2013. So, exactly 10 years after the last festival program was held in the cinema, the program returns to the Edison, this time as the main festival location. We are opening the festival with an evening screening of the film Pelican. What is very interesting and somehow coincidental is that the minor roles in that film are played by Vanja Gvozdić and Peđa Gvozdić from our Zorin dom City Theater, which has been the Festivals’ home all these years we didn’t have the cinema, and with that, this will be a nice link to our program moving from the theater to the Edison Cinema. Also, one of the camera assistants on the film was Pavle Kocanjer, a young filmmaker from Karlovac. I invite schools to apply for a visit to come and watch the competition screenings and the children’s program. The e-mails have already been sent to the schools’ addresses, but there are still some seats in the cinema that we need to fill, said Ksenija Sanković, coordinator of the Festivals, and revealed that this year the competition was extremely strong; out of the 1,447 films submitted for the competition program, we will watch 63 of them, from as many as 20 countries.
The opening of the Festivals will be held on Tuesday, September 12th at 8 p.m. at the Edison Cinema, with a screening of the film Pelican directed by Filip Heraković, with a guest appearance by the film’s crew.
As part of the festival, in the “Yellow Spotlight” program, we try to follow the further professional development of high school filmmakers. Some end up in filmmaking waters, while some go in different, but equally successful, directions. As part of this program, we will present the young cinematographer Pavlo Kocanjer, a longtime member of Cinema Club Karlovac and the Izvan fokusa association.
On Wednesday, September 13th at 8:30 p.m., the evening program will be held at river Dobra, where there will be a screening of Carbide, a feature film debut by Josip Žuvan. The film had its world premiere at the international film festival in San Sebastian as part of the New Directors competition program. It is a film that will at the same time make you laugh and keep you on the edge of your seat, giving you a sense of both nostalgia and reality.
On the third day of the Festivals, the evening program moves to the Edison Cinema – on Thursday, September 14th at 8:30 p.m., we will show Safe Place, the extremely successful feature film debut by Juraj Lerotić, a filmmaker from Split, in which he plays the main role. A traumatic event – a sudden suicide attempt – opens a gap in the everyday life of a family of three. Their lives change fundamentally, as if they’ve been pulled into a war invisible to everyone else. Juraj Lerotić’s long-awaited feature debut exceeded all expectations and arrives in front of the Karlovac audience with a handful of prestigious awards, such as the awards for the best debut film, director and actor (Goran Marković) from Locarno and with the Heart of Sarajevo for best film and actor (Juraj Lerotić). This poignant intimate drama, based on the director’s personal experience, was last year’s Croatian candidate for the Academy award.
The evening program on Friday, September 15th at 8:30 p.m. moves to the Korana river, and brings the award-winning film The Uncle, another debut, directed by Andrija Mardešić and David Kapac. The film is set in the late 1980s Yugoslavia, as a family welcomes their beloved uncle (Predrag Miki Manojlović ), who has returned home from Germany for the holidays. The reunited family enjoys Christmas lunch until a smartphone starts ringing. It’s a sign that it is not actually the 1980s, it’s not quite Christmas time either, and it is not only the turkey you can cut with a knife – you can cut the tension, too. The Uncle is a mixture of a family psychological horror, social satire and a holiday black comedy, and it comes to Karlovac crowned with a special recognition from Karlovy Vary and the awards for best screenplay and best costume design from Pula Film Festival.
The best films will be decided on by a jury consisting of Croatian producer Zdenka Gold, owner of the Spiritus Movens production company, Slovenian videographer, director, journalist, producer, VJ, and multimedia artist Tomaž Pavković and producer and director Ljubo Zdjelarević. There is also a youth jury made up of film lovers from Croatia, Italy and Qatar. They will be giving out the following awards for the films in the Festival competition: best screenplay, directing, cinematography, editing, best actor and best actress, and the Yellow Flag award, which is awarded for fighting against violence on film.
And like always, in addition to the official competition program, the Festivals emphasize their educational program. Thus, in addition to watching films, these events also offer education – discussions about and analyses of films in the form of workshops or lectures.
As part of the children’s program, elementary school students from Karlovac will be able to watch the best films from the previous Croatian Children’s Film Festivals, which will be celebrating its 61st edition this year. The screenings of children’s films are also intended as media culture classes for elementary school students. This way, they will not only be able to acquire new film knowledge and discuss important issues with their peers, but also perceive that dealing with filmmaking today is much easier than before and that they can definitely try their hand at it.
Special guests of this year’s Festivals will be participants of the European Film Factory conference. The European Film Factory is a film education project co-financed by the MEDIA/Creative Europe program and run by Institut français in partnership with ARTE Education & Europea Schoolnet. The online platform of the European Film Factory provides teachers, students aged 11 to 25 and cultural mediators from all member states of the Creative Europe Program free access to a catalogue of films from the European film heritage. Innovative educational kits and interactive tools are provided for each film.
Like every year, we are very proud of our Cinema Club Karlovac team for organizing the Festivals, and if there were more successful young people like them, we wouldn’t have any problems with county projects. From the very beginning of their story, the County has stood by them, and I can say that it will continue to do so in the years to come. We are glad that these Festivals have long outgrown not only the city and county frameworks, but have also grown much wider, and we have no doubt that they will continue to do so in the future. Congratulations to everyone, the Cinema Club can count on the support of the County just as it has all these years, and since the mayor is speaking next, I will just remind you that last year at the Korana river we all heard that this year’s location will not be on the Korana river bank but in front of the cinema, and we are glad to be here, well done to the entire team. Congratulations and good luck, said Marija Šćulac, Head of the Administrative Department for Education of Karlovac County.
Karlovac is special in many ways, among other things because we held film festivals in the city for so many years, but we didn’t have a cinema. I would like to thank the Cinema Club Karlovac team and all those who in any way participated in the work of the Cinema Club for everything they have done over the years. It seems to me that it is very important that the first event after Sunday in our renovated Edison Cinema be a film festival. I believe that they are looking forward to it as much as all of us are, and I am convinced that the cinema will now fulfill its function and this will in some way be a wind in their sails to further develop their Festivals and everything that goes with them. As for the opening of the cinema itself, I think that a lot has already been said, I will take this opportunity and invite all our fellow citizens to take the opportunity to enter the cinema and take a walk around on Saturday and Sunday, to reminisce about their memories from the Edison Cinema and for younger people who may not have those memories, and there are a lot of them, to actually see what awaits them, to feel the pride that we all feel. There is another thing that makes 2023 special; 150 years ago Nikola Tesla graduated, this year the Tesla Experience Center was opened, 103 years ago the Edison Cinema was opened, this year we renovated it and here we are in 2023 in the city of Karlovac – connecting Tesla and Edison. All I can say is that the journey to the future begins and ends in Karlovac, said Damir Mandić, the Mayor of Karlovac.
