Žiga Virc (Houston, We Have a Problem! [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Žiga Virc
fiche film]) started shooting his next feature-length film, Shooting Blanks [+lire aussi :
critique
fiche film], on Saturday 11 June, on location in Medvode, Slovenia. The cast list of the film is led by Primož Pirnat (seen recently in Andrej Košak’s All Against All and Metod Pevec’s I Am Frank [+lire aussi :
bande-annonce
interview : Metod Pevec
fiche film]), Eva Jesenovec (the star of Urša Menart’s My Last Year as a Loser [+lire aussi :
critique
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interview : Timon Sturbej
fiche film]), veteran actor Bine Matoh, Jurij Drevenšek (whose recent credits include Miroslav Mandić’s Sanremo [+lire aussi :
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interview : Miroslav Mandić
fiche film] and Damjan Kozole’s Half-Sister [+lire aussi :
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bande-annonce
interview : Damjan Kozole
fiche film]) and Greek actress Angeliki Papoulia (of Yorgos Lanthimos’ Dogtooth [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Yorgos Lanthimos
fiche film] and The Lobster [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
Q&A : Yorgos Lanthimos
fiche film] fame). Behind the camera, the crew includes up-and-coming cinematographer Fabris Šulin, production designer Gregor Nartnik (Tomaž Gorkič’s Idyll [+lire aussi :
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fiche film]), costume designer Tina Hribernik and make-up artist Lea Bratušek, while the script was penned by Virc and Iza Strehar (Bitch, A Derogatory Term for a Woman [+lire aussi :
critique
fiche film]).

The plot revolves around France, who wants to stop a German shopping mall chain from tearing down the statue of his father, who was a national hero of the resistance movement during World War II, in order to build another mall. One of the victims of France’s personal “resistance” is his own daughter Vida, who just wants to live her life, look to the future and raise her family. Over the course of 24 hours, events will turn the lives of everyone involved upside down.

The director stated that he started developing the script in 2017 together with Iza Strehar, but filming kept being pushed back owing to funding obstacles and the pandemic, which gave him more time to reflect on the project. Producer Boštjan Virc, of principal production company Studio Virc, highlighted that he was very glad that the co-production between Slovenia and Greece came about as a natural choice because of the countries’ similar recent history of economic crises and political divisions, and the shared sense of humour that has been injected into the film.

Production of Shooting Blanks is entrusted to Studio Virc (Slovenia) and Sinisa Juricic at Nukleus Film (Croatia). It is financially supported by HAVC, the Slovenian Film Centre, Radio-Television Slovenia, Greek broadcaster ERT and Creative Europe – MEDIA, while Viba Film Studio provided technical support. The Greek co-producer of the film is Minos Nikolakakis (Asphalt), best known for producing, writing and directing the arthouse-genre hybrid Entwined [+lire aussi :
critique
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interview : Minos Nikolakakis
fiche film].