ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN

Sunday started with a sad news: Franci Slak died yesterday. The death doesn't ask if it's suitable, it just strikes and I, stranger in a foreign country, feel a need to write in a foreign language that my heart is full of pain.
Our first closer meeting was on a premiere of Straight Ahead, my first short film, back in 1998. After the screening he came to me and said: "Congratulations, great effort and even bigger achievement". The moment is still very vivid in my memory, the great filmmaker approaching the young one. He told those words in his pathetic style of filmmaker, of true artist, that I rarely met in my life ever again. I really admired him because of that and I'm gratefull that he made my entering in the world of filmmaking something that I will never forget.
In the next years I was meeting him quite often, as we were good friends and colleagues with his stepdaughter Tosa. But in the last few years we got closer. In 2003 he produced The Frontiers of My World, documentary that we shot in Western Sahara. His help in the editing was priceless, he guided us with his enormous knowledge and he never crossed the line trying to impose something that was not part of our vision. There I first met a great pedagogue who had shared his knowledge over the last 20 years with Slovenian students of film directing.
While I'm writing, the memories of summer 2006 are jumping through my mind. In that period I had lived almost two months in his house in Slovenia, while finishing my film paris.love and working as his assistant on his film On Earth as it is in Heaven. Although he was very much affected by his illness (his weight was around 54 kg), I was astonished by his energy, by his will for living. Always in the move, always thinking, imagining new things, new projects. During that time we had spoken quite a lot, about his life, his work. We watched his old movies and he was remembering the interesting things, never really in a sentimental way but rather analytically and with a lot of humour. During those two months he shared with me not just his home but also his emotions, feelings, thoughts... I'm very proud that I shortly followed Franci on his personal and creative path of his life.
Our last meeting was in August 2007, when he came upon my invitation to be a part of the party scene in a documentary about Brina Svit. He was as always, charming and witty, full of new plans. Two months after he proudly wrote to me that he became a grandfather. It sounded as a begining of a new period in Franci's life.
But cancer won one more time. We lost a great humanist, pedagogue and filmmaker. The spirit of filmmaking without him will never be the same. FADE OUT

J.J.B.

Ratatouille - film location

Today I passed by this place and I finally made a photo. I remember how impressed and shocked I was the first time I saw it, few years ago, before the film came out.

For cinema buffs who will visit Paris, you can find it on 8 rue des Halles in the first arrondissement.
J.J.B.

Sstress

It's a good title for what I'm going through at the moment but I will be able to speak about that in few days. Meanwhile I continue uploading my films.
So, Sstress was shot a year after Director's Cut, following two basic ideas: first, film reels are again the leftovers from the frige (this time Danijel Hocevar gave two and Franci Slak one), second, the film should be in one shot following the idea that the specific of the frame is that there are some things outside it that we can't predict or imagine.
So, the crew: Vladimir Vlaskalic sat on a chair, again Bozo Zadravec as D.O.P., Mojca Gorogranc as make-up artist, Marjan Jelnikar as a grip, Julij Zornik sound-mix, editor Janez Bricelj, producer Danijel Hocevar and I operated the camera and directed it (I am credited also as a producer). We shot it during several hours one sunny night.

Trivia:
- the electric chair was primary designed for video clip of a famous Slovenian group Siddharta by Pepi Sekulic

J.J.B.