Festival preview features Croatian filmmaker

by Lauren Gross
Staff Writer

Programs may not be printed for the 27th annual Athens International Film and Video Festival, but tonight is a sneak preview of the upcoming festivities.

The festival presents a special screening tonight of Rajko Grlic's political documentary, Croatia2000: A Winter to Remember at 7 p.m. in The Ridges Auditorium.

Following the screening will be a panel discussion with Grlic, professors from Ohio University's history department and Diana Plestina-Racan, a political science professor at Wooster College. Racan is married to Croatian Prime Minister Ivica Racan.

Croatia2000: A Winter to Remember is a feature-length documentary film about dramatic political events in Croatia after the death of President Franjo Tudman. Following the most influential figures in Croatian politics, the film documents their biggest battles, victories and crushing defeats in the days of strain, passion and political combat.

Ruth Bradley, director of the Athens Center for Film and Video and director of the film festival, is excited about the screening.

"I think it is a fascinating glimpse into the political process that we seldom get to see in the movies," she said.

"This is something that is not just a Croatian issue," said Grlic, director of the film. "People from all over the world can see their own politicians in these characters."

Grlic, co -director Igor Mirkovic and their crew, including OU film student Danilo Serbedzija, shot the film from November 1999 to Feb. 18, 2000. For three months, nine teams of cameramen and sound assistants followed nine political figures for about 20 hours each day. After 10 months of editing, the final version was blown up from digital video to 35mm.

Grlic started out with little money and had to borrow cameras to make the film.

"It's fantastic what you can do with new technology," he said.

Croatia2000 is the first Croatian film to be in the big theaters, competing with big-budget American Hollywood films.

Grlic said the film is doing very well. During the last three weeks the film was screened at Brown, Yale and Oberlin universities. It also was shown last week at the First American Film Festival.

Grlic says he receives e-mails every day requesting showings. He also had an offer for American distribution.

With all his experience in filmmaking, it may be a surprise that film was not what brought Grlic to OU. He came in 1993 to make the CD-ROM How to Make Your Movie: An Interactive Film School, which he wrote, directed and produced. It has received eight international awards, including the Grand Award for multimedia in 1998.

Currently Grlic holds the position of Ohio Eminent Scholar in film at Ohio University as well as Director of the Imaginary Academy both here and in Groznjan, Croatia. He also is the artistic director of the Motovun Film Festival in Croatia.

Croatia2000: A Winter to Remember will be showing tonight at The Ridges Auditorium at 7. Admission is $4.