 Oct 8 2024 - Oct 13 2024

 Nova Gorica, Gorizia

The cross-border film festival Tribute to a Vision will focus on films depicting burning issues, including those dealing with war and its aftermath.

Two of the selected films are Afterwar, a feature by Danish director Birgitte Staermose set in postwar Prishtina, where children sell peanuts and cigarettes just to survive, and The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent by Croatia's Nebojša Slijepčević, a short film based on the harrowing story of the 1993 Štrpci massacre where Serbian paramilitary forces abducted, tortured and killed 19 civilians travelling on a Belgrade-Bar train. The latter won the Short Film Palme d'Or at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.

The opening film will be Sonja Prosenc's Family Therapy, Slovenia's entry for consideration in the best international feature category at the 2025 Oscars.

This year's edition coincides with the 25th anniversary of the festival's Darko Bratina award, which honours filmmakers who are storytellers with breakthrough visions. The 2024 award will go to French director Nicolas Philibert for his oeuvre exploring the forces that propel the modern world: greed, power, madness and its other side - lucidity.

A film critic, sociologist and politician, Bratina (1942-1997) was known to see film as the best means of understanding society and its cultural identity. A prominent member of the Slovenian minority in Italy, he founded Kinoatelje in 1977, a film centre in Gorizia that is now the main organiser of the festival.

The award anniversary will be marked with special screenings of Boris Palčič's film ET(h)NOS: Anche Noi Tudi Mi, which explores the impact Bratina and his contemporary, Italian writer Fulvio Tomizza, had on the cross-border area, and Martin Turk's Kino Volta, which talks about the first Irish cinema, an idea spearheaded by James Joyce, who for well over a decade resided in Trieste, where the screening will take place.

The programme will also include discussions with filmmakers and workshops. In addition to Gorizia, Nova Gorica and Trieste, the events will also take place in Ljubljana and San Pietro al Natisone.

For further details, click here.