Consumed crowned best Croatian documentary
- Borut Šeparović’s Consumed wins the Best Film Award at the 12th Liburnia Film Festival
The 12th Liburnia Film Festival (26-30 August) in Ičići, near Rijeka, which is dedicated to Croatian documentary cinema, ended with Borut Šeparović's Consumed winning the main award for Best Film.
The movie, which came out of a theatre experiment involving people aged 55 and over, who each have as many seconds as their age to speak about the most important things in their lives, and subsequently form an association to address crucial social questions, triumphed in the competition of 14 films.
Tatjana Božić's Happily Ever After [+see also:
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The Best Sound Design Award went to Marko Pelaić for his work on Neven Hitrec's Foreclosure. The project had received €100,000 from the Croatian Audiovisual Center, the highest sum ever granted to a documentary in the territory.
The audience voted for Hrvoje Mabić’s 4th Monkey, a story about the abuse of child psychiatric patients at the Lopača institution in Rijeka.
The Best Regional Film Award, for works from Rijeka and its surroundings, went to Mula, Roots Bound Together by Sabina Mikelić, and Igor Paulić's Return to Auschwitz received a Special Mention.
The festival welcomed international guests for the first time, including Teddy Grouya, director of the American Documentary Film Festival in Palm Springs, Bradford International Film Festival programmer and film critic for The Hollywood Reporter Neil Young,Bulgarian producer and Balkan Documentary Center representative Ana Alexieva, and programmers of documentary festivals in Podgorica, Belgrade and Prizren.
“We are trying to give an additional international boost to Croatian documentaries, which have been going strong for a while now, but are not yet on a par with stronger European industries,” LFF director Oliver Sertić told Cineuropa. “We hope that in three years our festival will feature a line-up of more quality films than ever.”
In addition to the Special Mention for Happily Ever After at the recent Sarajevo Film Festival, Croatian director Tiha K Gudac's Naked Island won the Heart of Sarajevo for Best Documentary.
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