A new action adventure film about a group of 12-year-olds fighting to prevent their playground from being turned into a parking lot will hit Slovenian cinemas on 5 September, accompanied by a campaign trying to reclaim kids from screens and encourage them to spend time with their friends outdoors.

Block 5, the official English title of Igrišča ne damo (We won't give up the playground), premiered at the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland in August and then went on to win the children programme jury's award at the 30th Sarajevo Film Festival later that month.

One of the protagonists, Alma has just moved to a new neighbourhood in Ljubljana, where her classmate Luna's skateboarding hangout is located. The two girls do not get along at first, but after Alma discovers that her father's company plans to demolish the playground she joins forces with Luna's skateboarding gang.

The battle over the playground evolves into a story about the power of acting together for a common cause, which is one of the messages of the film, a Slovenian-Czech-Croatian-Serbian co-production.

Alternative to screen time

The director Klemen Dvornik conceived of the film as an alternative to screen time, as "a promotion of spending time outdoors, socialising with friends, collecting bruises and experiences away from the eyes of parents, but still in a controlled environment such as a courtyard between blocks of flats".

Apart from the children cast in the roles of the five young protagonists, selected from among 600 kids who auditioned for the film, the cast also features several well-known Slovenian actors, including Marko Mandić as Alma's father, as well as Croatia's Ivana Roščić and Enis Bešlagić and Serbia's Tihomir Stanić.

In addition to the classic shots, the film also contains a series of reels, quick clips that Dvornik says children are used to from social networks. For adults, they may look hectic, too fast edited, but Dvornik says this is how children communicate today.

Talking with the Slovenian Press Agency (STA) at a premiere in Celje earlier this week, he said he and director of photography David Hofmann looked at how these reels are shot and incorporated them into the film as part of a narrative storytelling style.

Rebellion with a cause

Music plays an important role in the film. Dvornik got together with the young actors to listen to a lot of music they like, such as Masayah, a rapper from the coastal region, whose music features in the film.

However, they wanted to have a theme song created especially for the film. They commissioned popular rapper Boštjan Nipič, going by the stage name Nipke, who grew up in the Šiška borough, just a few blocks away from where the film was shot. Nipke wrote the lyrics, while music was written by Damjan Jović.

Nipke told the STA he was happy to accept the invitation because he could easily relate to the plot. Like the kids in the film, he spent his youth hanging out with his friends. They built a skate park themselves at a time when this was an emerging subculture and they had to "fight for our place".

The film, he says, has a rebellious character, but there's is even greater emphasis on collaboration. "Rebellion itself is meaningless if there's no desire behind it to make the world better for everyone in the end."

Nipke also likes the film as an adult. He believes that children will like it even more, just like he liked Hang on, Doggy! (Sreča na vrvici), the 1977 children's urban adventure action film featuring a black Newfoundland, or Summer in a Seashell (Poletje v školjki), another popular youth movie from 1986.

Getting kids outdoors

The video for the theme song also features in the #GibanjeZaGibanje (Movement For Movement) campaign, initiated by the team behind Block 5 in collaboration with Nipke and the creative studio Trampolin.

Tine Lugarič, creative director of Trampolin, which has also designed the graphics for the film, said it was the film crew's idea to do the campaign. They agreed it was important that the film should be seen by young people as well as their parents, teachers and others.

The film talks about the importance of children and young people "spending their free time in playgrounds, together, about the importance of getting together, placing the common good above the interests of an individual".

He says this is a very important message at a time when society is highly individualised, when children do less and less exercise, there is a growing problem of obesity, while the playgrounds, once full of children, are getting deserted.

The idea was to create a campaign that would strike a cord with people. Nipke made an important contribution with his song, which is a kind of extended trailer for the film, and which Lugarič believes will become an indelible part o popular culture along with the film.

The campaign has been recognised as important by the youth charity Slovenian Friends of Youth Association, which will take it over and run it from now on. They are also committed to make playgrounds open and accessible to all.