Two Slovenian films, a black comedy by acclaimed auteur Sonja Prosenc and a documentary on Zoran Predin, the popular Slovenian singer-songwriter, will be screened in the competition programme of the Sarajevo Film Festival later this month.

Prosenc's Family Therapy revolves around a 'nouveau riche' family living in a glass house, exuding an air of detached superiority.

This serves as a satirical backdrop for a humorous reimagining of the premise from Pasolini's Teorema: a young stranger arrives at the family household, disrupting the delicate balance and exposing a world of chaos and the family's dysfunctional relationships hidden beneath the surface.

Prosenc says the film was conceived as a tragicomedy, introduced through the genre of social satire. The story opens with social issues and the viewer gradually comes closer and closer to the characters.

"Maybe we begin to see ourselves in their flaws, which are not a few, and in their actions, which we otherwise condemn. This leads to a certain discomfort when watching the film, because it is always difficult to recognise yourself in something that you do not really approve of," she says.

The film, which had its world premiere at the Tribeca film festival in New York in June, stars Katarina Stegnar, Marko Mandić, Mila Bezjak and French up-and-coming actor Aliocha Schneider in the lead roles.

The cast also includes Norwegian actor Kristoffer Joner, who played one of the main characters in Prosenc's previous film History of Love, and Serbian singer Ana Đurić - Konstrakta, who represented her country at the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest.

Director and screenplay writer Sonja Prosenc. Photo: Matic Hrabar/STA

The film score was written by Primož Hladnik and Boris Benko from the duo Silence and recorded live by the Stravanger Symphony Orchestra in Norway.

Hladnik and Benko adapted Henry Purcell's 17th century opera King Arthur. "We wanted a great classical piece of music that is not sentimental, but drives the film forward and gives space for commentary on what we have just seen and for a humorous sensibility," Prosenc told the Slovenian Press Agency.

The film is a co-production between Slovenia, Italy, Croatia, Norway and Serbia. Prosenc had been working on it for seven years, one of the reasons being the Covid pandemic and its impact on the film industry in Slovenia.

Family Therapy is Prosenc's third feature film, after The Tree (2014) and History of Love (2018), both of which have attracted attention of audiences at home and abroad. She also directed Trigrad, a 2022 mystery thriller TV series starring Stegnar and Mandić, who also appear in lead roles in her latest film.

While Family Therapy will be screened in the competition programme of feature films in Sarajevo, Praslovan (Pre-Slav), an emotional portrait of Zoran Predin, one of the leading singer-songwriters of the former Yugoslavia, will be shown in the Open Air programme and in the documentary film section.

Directed by Sarajevo-born Slobodan Maksimović, the film follows Predin's journey from his early days in Maribor through his rise to fame in the former Yugoslavia with the band Lačni Franz to his successful solo career. The film takes its title from the iconic song that Predin released with Lačni Franz in 1981.

Singer-songwriter Zoran Predin. Photo: Katja Kodba/STA

"The film shows how his most popular songs reflected major social changes of the time, as well as turning points in his life. This intimate portrait shows not only the good times - the camera remains on even when it gets dark, watching how his career affects his friends and family," Gustav Film, one of the co-producers said.

The film features prominent figures from the former Yugoslavia such as Novi Sad singer-songwriter Đorđe Balašević, Sarajevo-born actor Branko Đurić, Slovenian satirist Sašo Hribar, Croatian pop and jazz singer Gabi Novak, and Slovenian singer-songwriter Vlado Kreslin, among others.

Predin says the film has held up a mirror to him, in which he discovered some of his own footprints, hitherto "unknown to him, which I have left in time and in the people I have spent 45 years with".

The director took a liking to Predin as soon as he heard his song Naj ti poljub nariše ustnice (Let a Kiss Draw Your Lips), the first of Predin's songs he ever heard. "As a Sarajevo native, I didn't understand more than the chorus, but I felt so strongly this brutal rhythm and the unusual melodiousness of Zoran's velvety voice that I loved him immediately."

The film is the product of five years of recording, reviewing archival material, listening to all 45 albums, seven months of editing and searching for the story that would best reflect Predin and his creativity.

The result is a film about "an incredible singer-songwriter, author, family man with all his flaws and values. A documentary about an eternal rebel who shaped the rock and roll scene of the former Yugoslavia and still perseveres today," said Maksimović, who directed the first Slovenian Christmas movie, The Beanie.

The 30th iteration of the Sarajevo Film Festival, the biggest such event in Southeast Europe, will take place between 16 and 23 August.