A story about the return of the Karst shepherd to the ancient border between man and wolf
SONS OF BORA is about a Karst shepherd named Karst who becomes a herding dog. The film follows him from his birth through his early education with his breeder Emil, who uses an ancient shepherd-teaching method to prepare him to take over a herd of his own someday. After two months he’s taken in by the Kržič family whose Karst shepherd was killed on a pasture by a bear a year earlier. There he’s taken over by Jožef, a young boy with a great gift for working with dogs who fully trains him as a shepherd dog in one year. There’s a parallel story about another Slovenian son of bora—a Slovenian wolf. The viewer is led into the wolf world by a renowned Slovenian biologist Dr. Miha Krofel who studies wolves all over Europe. We follow Dr. Krofel to Austria, Germany and all the way to Trentino in Italy where the most famous Slovenian wolf Slavc has moved after walking over a thousand kilometres. Slavc has formed a wolf pack on the Lessinia Plateau, which means that the European Central Alps are populated with wolves for the first time after 130 years.
The story about Karst and Slavc pays homage to the last Slovenian native breed—the Karst shepherd—and is simultaneously the film’s authors’ response to the pressures of Slovenian politics that tried to decimate the Slovenian wolf population in 2019.
| Producer: |
ASTRAL d.o.o. |
| Director: |
Miha Čelar |
| Script: |
Miha Čelar in Blaž Vehovar |
| Camera: |
Rožle Bregar, Miha Čelar, Igor Pfeifer – Fifi
|
| Editing: |
Hieronim Vilar
|
| Director of photography: |
Rožle Bregar |
| Others: |
Sound: Vincent Laurence
Graphic processing: Črt Kovač
Grading and final image processing: Urban Potočnik
Creative tone processing: Vincent Laurence |
Scriptwriter, director and head-producer
Documentary filmography:
1. SLOVENIAN SCHOOL FOR HIMALAYAN GUIDES IN NEPAL, 2000
2. FILM JURNEY OF BOŽIDAR JAKAC– Documentary, made from restored old 8 and 9-mm short films from beginning of 19-th century, 2001
4. WHO’S AFRAID OF DR. RUGELJ 2010 – Documentary of a controversial Slovene psychiatrist, 2009.
5. HITLER’S BIBLE The documentary about Nazi’s plans to establish a neo-pagan cult temple in Bled, during the WW II, 2011.
6. Creative documentary portrait A BEAUTIFUL MIND A documentary of a Slovenian bodiless psychiatrist Dr. Jože Felc, 2014.
7. TATJANA IN MOTHERLAND – Animated documentary essay about Slovenian man who are by majority mama’s boys, 2014. – Selected for 18 Int. Documentary film festivals; DOK Seeds 2015, East Silver 2015, Noida IFFF 2015 (New Delhi) -Best Editing Award, Doc and Short INFF 2015 (Jakarta) – Golden Award, Nancy Lorain IFF 2015 – Grand Prix du Festival, El Ojo Cojo IDF 2016 –Best Documental..
8. REINVENTING THE WHEEL – Crossmeda historical documentary about 5200-years-old wheel, found in Ljubljana marsh in 2004. (Short animated film, Feature documentary, comic book and APP), 2015.
9. CODELLI – Party animated documentary portrait about Slovenian inventor who in 1911 produced the first feature film ever, filmed in Africa, 2017.- IRIS 2018 -Best SLO Doku Cinematoraphy Award, Master DOC 2019–Best History Docu, Alive DOC 2018–Best History/ Biography Docu
10. GOODNIGHT, IRENE / Scriptwriter & producer; A controversial love story of Avguštin and Irene who is being unconscious for last 22 years, 2019.
11. KAMEELEONI – The Beatles of former Yugoslavia; A musical documentary about five Slovenian teenagers which made Tito’s Yugoslavia go rock n roll, 2020
12.SONS OF BORA – A story about the return of the Karst shepherd to the ancient border between man and wolf, 2021
