Slavica Exception
Short Documentary Film, 11', 1971, Yugoslavia (Slovenia)
A documentary about a professional artist-stripper who chose this path because of the possibility of making quick money.
Poisons
Short Documentary Film, 14', 1964, Yugoslavia (Slovenia)
Industrialization brings progress but comes together with harmful influences on environment. Warning of the dangers of waste materials dumped into the air and the waters.
Suicides Beware!
Short Documentary Film, 12' 5'', 1964, Yugoslavia (Slovenia)
The problem of teenage suicide in Slovenia. Typical characteristics presented through the testimony of family and friends of the deceased.
National Costume
Short Documentary Film, 11', 1975, Yugoslavia (Slovenia)
Some political regimes misused the national costume of Slovenia. Some of its details come from German Alps, but the costume kept the characteristics of the area. Today the costume serves as a tourist attraction.
Director and screenwriter Mako Sajko, who can rightly be classified as one of the classics of Slovenian cinema, was born in 1927 in Tržič. He studied at the High Film School in Belgrade and graduated there in 1959, and at the same time he also trained in Munich and Paris. He began his long and fruitful career as an assistant director for famous Slovenian film directors, such as František Čap and France Štiglic. Sajko's life path has always been closely connected with moving images. Since 1961, when he set out on his own, he has created a series of short documentaries, mostly based on his own scripts. Moreover, in the 1960s and 1970s, he ranked among the leading documentary filmmakers in Slovenia. His short but meaningful documentaries were all, from the first to the last, a reflection of their time. Mainly because of the chosen topic, they weren’t infamous only in Yugoslavia, but resonated all over the world. With the film "Suiciders, beware!" from 1967, he became notorious in the eyes of the then Yugoslav authorities, so that later the film "Narodna noša" (1975), which was fundamentally not thematically controversial, was not allowed to be shown publicly. At that time, Sajko permanently stopped producing films and instead devoted himself to film education and the projects of young filmmakers. He worked in relative anonymity for several decades until he received the Badjura Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009. After that, interest in one of the undisputed giants of Slovenian cinema grew again. With his works, Mako Sajko was ahead of his time, as he opened up topics that are still relevant today. His watchful eye and sharp mind constantly discovered various humanistic and sociological aspects.
"Mako Sajko, sharp mind, eternal youth, playfulness, sparkle of a senior of old age. A man who never complained, who told juicy stories that made us chuckle. He always watched all the films at the Dokudoc festival, for him our festival was a holiday. Mako is a symbol of Slovenian documentary film. We know it can be good, but unfortunately we like to disable it at times. With his ideas, which we call to life, Mako lives on with us for the development of Slovenian documentary film!"
- Maja Malus Azhdari, program selector, DOKUDOC International Documentary Film Festival, Maribor