Za Znoret

"Za znoret" is the title of the book of Slovenian writer Zoran Hocevar. Valter Dragan plays in mono drama based upon the book. And my friend Vittorio Paci made a video clip for that show.


J.J.B.

Films, Films, Films... - Director's Cut

I've just started uploading my short films and other stuff on internet, because I would finally like to have most of my work in one place (which will be on this blog - in several days I will rearrange Filmography section).
I've decided to publish them also on posts, as I will upload them, with the short stories about shoots, festivals, etc...
So, here we go:
In winter 2001 I was sitting in Emotionfilm production office chatting with Danijel Hocevar about god knows what. He prepared me a coffee and I went to get some milk, I opened the frige and I saw inside 3 small reels (120m) of 35mm film (I think two were 500 ASA and one 800 ASA). I asked him what's that for and he explained that those were the reels - leftovers from previous project, they didn't use them and soon they would be out of date. I turned around and told him: "Dane, I have an idea!".:)
As I remember, that year we didn't shoot a lot of films in Slovenia, so for one afternoon shoot I called my friends, Sloveniian film workers to help me. Dunja Zupanec and Blaz Valic accompanied by Jurij Meden were actors, Bozo Zadravec was D.O.P., make-up Alenka Nahtigal, costumes - Sabina Buzdon, grips Stane Podobnikar jr. and Marjan Jelnikar, prop master - Rudi Pozeg, sound post-production Julij Zornik, Danijel Hocevar produced it and I was screenwriter, director, editor and camera operator.
Here is a crew.

And a picture from rehearsal.

Funny thing was that this was really no budget shoot, so we borrowed the electricity from Nino&Jelena's appartment. To fix it over the street it looked like this.


Anyhow, here is the film. It was kind of festivals hit, they really liked it, esspecially showing it on closing ceremonies.:) And the film is really made for cinema, because it uses the cinema hall as a film element.


Trivia:
- the voice of producer at the end of the film is acctually the voice od Danijel Hocevar. As I remember Julij Zornik recorded it directly from his mobile phone.
- Jurij Meden, Slovenian famous film critic and filmmaker plays the role of the director.
- on the first few screenings in Slovenia, at the sound of teared film and blank white frame, the cinema operators were constantly stoping the projection. We had to accompany the film reel with the warning: "In this film the effect of teared film is used. Please don't stop the screening.".

J.J.B.

A bout de souffle - commercial

Voila, finally.
I helped Andrew Brooke, the friend of mine, who last year graduated at Eicar film school on his commercial assignement.
He didn't need to persuade me a lot, A bout de souffle is one of my favorite films and I had a lot of fun editing this. It took him another year to fix the music and sound but finally, here it is.


J.J.B.

Slovenia Mix Summer 2007

As I promised, here we go.

I took this photo in the plain day but it was raining as hell. I took it with flesh so this is what I got. Those are Jure Cernec and his girlfriend Svetlana.


One day we were sitting in the evening on workshop Divided God in Ljubljana: Vava, Tom, unknown, Zelimir Zilnik, Maja Ziberna and Dzeni.





On the first part of the shooting with Brina we visited Bled. I insisted on taking photo of Brina and Pascal in front of ex Tito's villa.


Here is a link where you can see a lot of photos from the workshop The One Minute Jr.

And at the end, last day of the second part of the shooting with Brina, party at her place.








J.J.B.

Back In Paris

Voila, after 40 days of travelling around I'm finally home. Actually I came a week ago but usually when I come to Paris after a long period of time I allways need a week or so to adapt. However, for the beginning, two things:

First, I plan to do in a day or to a photo review of my summer activities around but here are two pictures that go out first. One day, while I was on holidays on Croatian island Krk, I had seen a poster announcing the tv screening of the football match between Hajduk and Sampdoria in a bar near sea.. I thought it will be fun so I went there. As you see here, tv was placed on the beach side, with a sea behind it and it was connected with hundreds of cables and antena from 70's. The game started and we could barely see the players moving around but because of the noise in the picture the ball was completely unrecognisible. So we protested to the boss of the place and then the real fun happened. He started to move antena left and right, up and down and in all possible directions that you can imagine. Very quckly also we, the spectators, joined the club; each one had his own idea what to do to fix it. This lasted till the end of the first half time when we got tired and decided to relax during the break:). But ones the second half started we were all there again trying to fix the picture. I think it's not neccessary to mention that we didn't see the minute of the game but we had had great fun.

Today I received an e-mail from my friend Karim Raoul. We worked quite a lot together (among other things he was D.O.P. on paris.love) and after he moved back to New York we stayed in touch all the time.
Anyhow, he opened his website (the link is also among my favorites) with his photo work. Definitely worthy to check. I found this picture, that I'm publishing here with the approval of the author, very strong (bird=airplane); I just don't understand how he didn't sell it at the time.


J.J.B.

Leçon de cinéma

Sometimes it happens; the atmosphere is right, there is something in the air. Several days ago, after we had lunch and we had discussed the school issues, we stayed sitting in a restaurant: Nenad, Adriano and myself. School year is over so we drank few glasses of wine. At one moment and I don't remember by what was it provoqued, Nenad started to analyse Adriano's last film. And one of those magic moments started. We call Nenad maestro, because his knowledge of cinema and art in general is huge. He shares that knowledge with his students and also with us, his collegues, on a daily basis. But just sometimes it seems that all his passion wakes up, and than he goes with all his heart deeply into the life and cinema. I hope I can bring you closer the moment of that day through some of these photographs. It started like this:

This is like the opening sequence; Leçon de cinéma was just about to start:

J.J.B.

paris.love in Slovenia - part 2

Outside is raining at the moment so the best thing is to finish with what I have promised.
Sunday was the day of the screening(s). First was at 11 a.m. When Mirella and I came to Kinodvor, there were around 30 people sitting there. Mostly men. Koen told us that each Sunday Albanian comunity gathers and they drink a coffee there. It was very funny. On morning screening we had something like 15 people among whom was also my family: my mother Metka, my brother Andrej and my nieces Manja and Nika. While driving to Ljubljana my nephew Matic got really sick so his mother Mojca took him back home so at the end I didn't see them at all. Mirella's coment after the screening you can see in the first video. Vlado Skafar also came in the morning saying that he doesn't want to take precious seat in the evening. Thank you Vlado. Anyhow, the projection was nice and after it we went for a lunch with my family. It was nice, we spent a nice time but they were in the hurry so they left soon and Mirella and I went for siesta in the hotel. Around 6.30 p.m. Tom, Dzeni and Tomaz from Luksuz Produkcija came to take us back to cinema where we met again Koen and Nina and they invited us for lunch. I was already very excited so I drank also a glass of cognac. At the screening I met a lot of my dear friends and colleagues, I will not tell the names because I'm sure that I will forget someone. As I forgot, when I was presenting the team of collaboraters, to present Jure Moskon, Tom Gomizelj and Tomaz Pavkovic. Guys, I'm really sorry. Next time I will have a list on the paper.

J.J.B.

paris.love in Slovenia - part 1

We came back yesterday (on Monday), today I was trying to put together videos and pictures. It's almost midnight, on googlevideo.com is impossible to upload for a moment, my space has also some problems and on you tube the situation is the same. Till now I succeded uploading two, there are three more to come (maybe I will publish them tomorrow).
We came to Ljubljana on Friday evening. Vlado from Gustavfilm waited for us at the airport and he drived us to hotel. We went out for a dinner, we drank a glass of vine and that was it. On Saturday we met Jure Moskon. We went together to Kinodvor to make a test screening.

After that we were sitting, drinking coffee. This is how I surprised Jure Meden who was working on something. After a while we also met our dear friend from Paris, Reza Serkanian and I made a quick interview.
reza serkanien


The guys from Charlie TV arrived so they made an interview with me and immediately after Katja Lenart made an interview with me for vest.si (you can see it here). And the reverse shot that I made is here.

Then we went for a lunch: Mirella, Reza, Jure, his girlfriend Ivana and me. I took them to Bosnian restaurant to try our speciality cevapcici. Mirella didn't like kajmak (she called it vanilla ice-cream), I was more than glad to eat her portion by myself. After that Jure and Ivana went home and we went back to Kinodvor.
We met there Koen - the program director and Nina - the festival director. The cast on his hand is a consequence of a traditional football match on Isola Cinema Film Festival between guests and voluntary brigade.
He posed for us in front of our poster and after he took a photo of me and Mira. In between we went to see The Teacher, I am ashamed to admit but I felt to sleep although the film was very interesting. Cevapcici in my stomach were just too heavy. We spent the afternoon walking around. We passed by Metelkova where we stoped in Jalla, Jalla. Mira spoted the poster of Desperado Tonic, I haven't even seen it.


The evening was easy, Mirella started to feel sick so we went to sleep early.
Part 2 is cooming soon.

J.J.B.

Shoots, shoots, shoots...

Yesterday, probably under the impression of elections, I went to see French film Le Candidat. I was not really impressed and I'm not in the mood to analyse it. In front of the cinema this guys were preparing a shot.

I didn't ask anything, I saw HDV camera and I assume it was commercial. However, today I passed by another shoot. Stylianos Constantinoy, 2nd year student, was shooting his 35 mm selected project in the church. Luckily, the church authorities didn't know that the film speaks about sexual abusment of the child made by priest:). Here are some moments.

Just before that I met my old friend (she is not old, the friendship is old :)) from Slovenia Hanna Slak. She is on her way back to Berlin with her boyfriend and they stopped in Paris for few days. She is also a film director and we know each other for more than 10 years. We did together Desperado Tonic, and last year I have worked for two days on her last film Teah directing the extras (we created a party in the forest with people dancing all around). The project is finished and it will be presented at Film Market in Cannes (where it should be also screened her first feature Blind Spot). Good luck!

J.J.B.