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There will be a total of 108 films in Ljubljana and 24 in Maribor. The innovation of this year's festival is the award for best short film. The Focus Category will be contemporary Catalan cinematography, accompanied by a retrospective on the Indian director Adoorj Gopalakrishnan and the British Terence Davies as well as the category Posvečeno (which means "Consecrated") on the trilogy on Kennedy by Želimir Žilnik.

Last year, 49,000 spectators attended the film festival.

Program categories on 19th LIFFe

There are seven different categories this year: premieres, Kralji in Kraljice (Kings and Queens), contemporary films that have already been awarded, Panorama svetovnega filma (World Film Panorama) presenting favourite movie productions from five continents, Extravagance, showing different genres and sensitive content, Proti vetru (Against the Wind) showing movies by authors whose work rebels against the mainstream, the already-mentioned Retrospective on Catalonia, Posvečeno and the Short Movie Category.

The prizes

Four Awards will be distributed among the competing films: Vodomec for best movie in the Perpektive category as chosen by an international three-member jury, Zmaj (Dragon) for the best movie with no distributors for Slovenia, the best Short Movie Award and the Fipresci Prize, awarded by international jury of movie critics and journalists.

The Zmaj - audience award

The Zmaj is this year's new award. The audience will choose its favourite from among 39 feature films that have not yet founds distributors in Slovenia. The Zmaj Award is donated by the firm Tobačna Ljubljana.

Tobačna Ljubljana has been supporting LIFFe for several years. For the first time, this year the Audience Award is titled Zmaj (Dragon) after the symbol of Ljubljana, the city where Tobačna supports a variety of cultural activities. The Zmaj is a glass sculpture and is a result of productive cooperation with the artist Polona Demšar.

The legend

One interpretation on the origin of Ljubljana's dragon is connected to Ljubljana's legend that the city was founded by the Greek mythological hero Jason and his companions, the Argonauts, who had stolen the golden fleece from King Aeetes and fled across the Black Sea and up the Danube, Sava and Ljubljanica rivers. At a large lake in the marshes near the source of the Ljubljanica, they stopped and disassembled their ship. The lake was the dwelling place of a monster, which Jason fought, defeated and killed. The monster, now referred to as the Ljubljana Dragon, found its place atop the castle tower depicted on the Ljubljana coat of arms and on the Dragon Bridge.

Polona Demšar is representative of the artists of her young generation; her versatile creativity includes combinations of different materials and media, including sculpting, photography and glass. Her dragon, the Zmaj award has a fierce look, demonstrating the ambitious goals of an individual, and it combines perfection, senses, a harmony of material and storytelling, as does the art of film.

Itak filmfest

For the second time, the festival's novelty, the Itak Filmfest, will add to its variety. Itak's concept is based on mobile communications and new technologies that enable individuals to make their own movies in simple and accessible way.

The Landscape No. 2

"Pokrajina Št.2" (Landscape No. 2), the second feature film by Vinko Moederndorfer, was proclaimed the best film of the 11th Festival of Slovenian Film, which ended in the coastal town of Portorož. The story of post-WWII executions of Nazi collaborators also won awards for best directing, the best supporting actress (Maja Martina Merljak), set design (Duško Milavec), photography (Dušan Joksimović), and best original score (Borut Kržišnik). "Pokrajina St.2 is a convincing and modern genre depiction of what continues to be a topical and painful issue from our not entirely distant past. Its high productions standards are comparable to those of the more developed national cinemas," the festival's jury wrote. A special jury composed of film critics on the other hand opted for "Lajf" (Life) by Vito Taufer. "Lajf presents typical teenager problems in a unique and unrepeatable way," the jury wrote, praising the film for being among the few festival's few films demonstrating some humour. The 11th Festival of Slovenian Film brought 41 Slovenian made or co-produced films and a rich accompanying programme. The main jury chose the best film among 16 feature films.