About film
Privat is a documentary film with essay elements focusing on illegal construction along the coast in south Istria. It deals with illegal settlements in the municipalities of Medulin and Vodnjan. These colonies have flourished in the past ten years when the legalisation act made it possible for weekenders to build up awnings and walls on their land lots and turn the places they used to camp at into holiday homes. In the film we follow a gradual extension of cottages, the use of different and often only available materials, decorating details, gardens and yards, building fences to prevent people from passing and privatising roads to the beach. New settlements and coastal construction enrage the local community, which is why these houses often have burn traces and graffiti. On the other hand, across these illegal yet small holiday homes hidden in the forest of Premantura, 500 metres away is an entire neighbourhood of legal four-storey apartment buildings, a textbook example of overconstruction on assigned land lots. Such a correlation, where legal buildings exploit the space and quality of life in the village, relativises the issue of illegality and opens up room for discussion about legal regulations and the way the rules are set.