A historical observational documentary, highlighting ordinary people during the breakup of Slovenia from Yugoslavia. An intimate insight into the hot summer of 1991, when ordinary people were suddenly confronted by a much stronger Yugoslav army. Made possible by a wide-ranging campaign of collecting the never-before-seen home video footage, the film places viewers in an audio-visual time machine and takes them to a chaotic period before, during and after the process of Slovenia gaining its independence. It shows that every major historic event consists of many ordinary, tiny, naive, poignant, frightening but inspiring moments away from the spotlight.
| Producer: |
Boštjan Virc |
| Director: |
Žiga Virc |
| Script: |
Iza Strehar, Žiga Virc |
| Camera: |
arhivski posnetki |
| Editing: |
Špela Murenc |
| Director of photography: |
Andrej Virc |
| Others: |
Archival researcher: Matic Štamcar
Image and sound post-production: Matej Nahtigal
Production organizers: Nastja Kotnik Minik, Nataša Vugrinec
|
Film and television director Žiga Virc graduated from the Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television in Ljubljana. His graduation film "Trieste is ours!" was a Finalist at 2010 Student Academy Awards.
In 2016, his feature-length debut “Houston, we have a problem!” was released. It became the second most watched Slovenian film in cinemas that year. After its premiere at Tribeca in New York in April 2016, the film had its European festival premiere in the Karlovy Vary competition program, won 2nd place in Pula according to the audience's polls. At the Slovenian Film Festival, the film won the main award for the best feature film, for the best male role and for the best editing. The film was accepted in competition sections at BFI London, Portorož, Warsaw, Zurich, DokuFest Prizren, Stockholm, Helsinki, Trieste... Film was Slovenia's candidate for a foreign language Oscar, and in July 2017 it was also released by the Netflix.
His short feature film “A New Home” had its world premiere in September 2016 at the Toronto International Film Festival and has since been accepted to more than 100 festivals and won 10 awards.
Žiga has also directed many corporate films, TV commercials, documentaries, short feature films and received several awards for them, including the Slovenian main academic student award. As an author, he collaborated with television or. content providers HBO Europe, Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Al Jazeera, RTV Slovenia, Finland's YLE, Italy's RAI, Netflix etc.
His work has been noted by hundreds of media releases, interviews and reviews, including in key global film media such as Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Wrap, Eye On Film. In 2012, he completed a year-long schooling at the Documentary Campus Masterschool. He was a member of the jury of the documentary film section at the Warsaw Film Festival in October 2016. In January 2017, he was a guest lecturer in the United States at the University of Columbia, the University of Michigan, and the University of Pennsylvania.
In 2017, he completed the full-year EAVE (European Audio Visual Enterpreneurs) workshop, and in 2018, he developed a screenplay for a new feature film at the Sources2 international workshop in Norway. The film is in pre-production. In 2020, his short musical Liberation of Libido began its festival journey.
