Rotterdam 2009: Trainee Project

Yoana Pavlova
Vlado Skafar Talks About His New Film "Letter to a Child"

Yoana Pavlova: The IFFR's website announces that you co-founded the Slovenian Cinematheque and started the Isola Cinema Film Festival, how did you come up with the idea of making movies?

Vlado Skafar: The idea came naturally. The inspiration for my first short stroke me eleven years ago while I traveled home from Sarajevo's festival. I drove through the town of Mostar, which is known for this "invisible wall" separating it. I was present at Sarajevo as a script writer, selector and organizer, but then I suddenly realized that I want to shoot "The Old Bridge". Later, another idea came by so I made my second movie and so on.

OK, but how did you decide to go for cinema in the first place?

I started studying literature in the '80s, but soon I realized that everything was written decades ago. During this period I watched many films and I found out that cinema was very close to my heart. I am not a story teller, I am an observer. Now I am going back to literature doing the same thing as Letter to a Child. I started this book while waiting for the film funding and now the text will be published under the title "Ordinary Conversations". It delivers the same idea as the movie, but in another media.

In the Q&A session after the first festival screening you told the audience that your project started as a no budget movie. Did you receive any funding at a certain point during the production?

The producer and I waited for a very long time. Our first application for funding was not approved, so we decided to do the movie even with our own money. We thought that I can do almost everything and we will need only a camera man, so we borrowed the equipment and started filming the people. Then, after the shooting we received financial support from the Slovenian Film Fund, which happened to be very useful in the post production period. There were many technical problems due to the equipment we borrowed, so we had to remove them digitally.

How do you plan to distribute your movie?

I actually never thought of that. So far, Letter to a Child was received very well. There were already two premiere screenings and the movie will be officially released in April. I also had this idea of traveling with the film on my own, visiting distant places and people who cannot go to cinema theaters anymore. There are many reasons for the audience in the big cities to withdraw from the multiplexes, but I am talking about places where there are no cinema theaters anymore.

Do you have any cinema clubs in Slovenia, screening independent films like yours? I guess this would be an option as well?

Yes, we had such a cinema, only in Ljubljana — Kinodvor. It was part of the old  Cinematheque, but then the old director died. A new government was elected and they decided to close it down. Yet, there is this new mayor of Ljubljana who decided to re-launch the initiative.

What is the situation nowadays, do you have to rely on national funding?

Yes, right now this is the only way to make a movie, although our legislation offers other options. I truly hope that the new government will motivate the producers more. For me, personally, if you run for money, you will lose the idea. This is what happens in European cinema right now, therefore all movies are so similar. Thus, I prefer to have a crazy producer, who can give me complete freedom to stay with my film, even though I may not get paid. I write down my ideas and the costly are immediately being put away, in some hidden directory. Someday I may open the file, but right now I prefer a low-cost solution.

With this being said and considering the new political situation in Slovenia, do you think that your we can witness a New Wave in your local cinematography, exactly was we did with Hungaria, Rumania and now Turkey on this festival?

I must say that I do not believe in national cinema. For example I've always thought that Soviet cinema is great, especially the movies from the late '70s. Sure, their industry needed time after the Perestroika but now we see what these new directors do and I really admire their work.
   I think that having a New Wave is not a plan, it is a chance. It is a cinema of people who get connected. The same thing happened in Argentina, but in Slovenia there are only 2-3 films a year. Of course, we can be optimistic, because there is a new minister of culture, Majda Širca, and she is one of the biggest cinema historians in our country.

Yoana Pavlova. My name is Yoana Pavlova and I am 29 years old. My first academic education was in psychology. I was truly fascinated by the perspectives that cognitive science gave me. After earning a bachelor's degree, I worked in the IT sector. By dealing with top-notch technologies, I saw a chance to mix cognitive science and visual arts.
   So, I decided to study five years more at NATFA (National Academy for Theatre and Film Art). My education in Cinema Studies gave me a very good ground for practical and theoretical development. At the same time, I had the freedom to work on many projects, such as an online community for movie fans, underground screenings or live discussions.
   As you can guess, I am interested in all experimental forms of visual arts. My master's degree thesis in Cinema Studies explored the hyperreality in the contemporary pop culture. I would like to discuss the way people communicate about cinema in the age of IMDB and the social networks. Under these circumstances, our profession faces a huge challenge. I have to constantly develop different adaptation strategies in my field of work and I am sure many film critics and journalists face the same problem.

top