The 22nd edition of the Liburnia Film Festival, the Croatian documentary film festival, closed with the awards ceremony on Saturday, August 31, at the small Summer Stage in Opatija. The film “Our Children” by Silvestar Kolbas, produced by Factum was declared the best film, while the audience with an average rating of 4.72/5 chose the Serbian-Croatian-Polish co-production “The Tempest of Neptun” by Katarina Stanković (Sirena4Reel, LEWA Productions, 2k4k). A special mention went to the young Anja Koprivšek for the film “Grand Prize” (Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb), and for the second time at the LFF in the category of the best regional film, Toni Jelenić from Rijeka, the director of the film “Mount Stuff”, (Academy of Dramatic Art). The “Dragan Rubeša” critic’s award was given to “Deep Tones” by Igor Ilić (Zagreb Film). The best director is Jakov Torić (“Houses Without Roofs”), the best cinematographer Elvis Lenić (“Ship”), while the film “Pain” by the recently deceased multimedia artist Ivan Faktor celebrated in the categories of best editor (Damir Čučić) and sound designer (Krešimir Šušljek). The main jury consisted of Marina Burić, producer of the IDFA Forum, the industrial part of the world’s largest documentary film festival IDFA (Amsterdam), Danijel Pek, artistic director of the Pula Film Festival and producer of numerous documentaries and feature films (“The Man Who Couldn’t Be Silent”, “Murina”, “Storkman”…), Boris Poljak, director of photography, director and multiple LFF laureate, Vjeran Šalamon, multimedia artist, composer and sound designer and Melita Vrsaljko, journalist and director of last year’s LFF winning film “Knin-Zadar”. Nino Kovačić is this year’s film critic who gave the “Dragan Rubeša” critic’s award. The sponsors of the professional awards, in addition to the festival’s 1,000 euros for the best film and the audience award and 700 euros for the best regional film, are Audio Video Consulting – AVC, which presented the best cinematographer and sound designer with a voucher of 700 euros for equipment, ACER Croatia awarded the best editor video projector. The best director earned entry to the project development workshop Ex Oriente Film (Documentary Film Institute from Prague), and the director of the best regional film, direct entry to a similar workshop, BDC Discoveries, awarded by the Balkan Documentary Center. The critic’s award “Dragan Rubeša” is awarded in cooperation with Art kino in Rijeka. The unique sculptures were made by Saša Jantolek. In total, 37 films were shown at the Liburnia Film Festival, of which 26 were in competition. The films made at Restart’s last School of Documentary Film, “Working like there’s no Tomorrow” by Klara Berdais and “Happy New Year” by Margarita Vlaović, were screened out of competition, while Vanda Kreutz and Tin Dožić worked with the youngest again in another series of Restart’s educational program Filmmaking for Beginners. The organizer of the 22nd LFF is the Association LFF, and the co-organizer is Restart.
In the photo: Nenad Puhovski, producer of the film “Our Children” / photo: Tanja Kanazir
