PHOTO: Zagreb Film Festival Opens

Promises were realised and expectations met on the first day of the film festival the Croatian capital is proud of. And it just started!

ZAGREB, CROATIA – The atmosphere in the Student Centre in Zagreb was warmed up by a brass orchestra and visitors starving for films were ushered into the cinema by Zagreb Film Festival mascots. The proud co-host of the festival, Zagreb’s Mayor Milan Bandic, told us that he thinks the festival director, Boris Matic, had done an excellent job this year by selecting three women in the panel of judges, adding that he believes that because of this he had made sure that the Golden Chariot, the award of the festival, would go to the best film.

Fearing that we would not relay his thinking, the mayor repeated his words in his opening address and promised the audience enjoyment on the summer stage of the Tuskanac Cinema next summer.

- I am very curious about that Mexican film about the relation between God and man – Bandic told us before the screening. So bandic stayed for the screening of the Soul Desert, while he did not stay for the concert after the film due to other obligations.

Zagreb lost in time and space – a small accident and a big audience

Matic introduced us to the “seven days filled with seven various programmes” and we witnessed an unusual twist of fate. The film “Zagreb” from 1943 which had been lost for decades and which was supposed to have been shown on the first day of the festival, was not screened because it got lost again, in the wastelands of the German postal service. We soon forgot this “first accident in the six years of the festival” when Fiona Gordon and Dominique Abel, Belgian directors, mimes and actors of the film “Rumba”, that opened the 6^th Zagreb Film Festival, arrived.

Fiona and Dominique greeted us with a “hello” and immediately won over the audience, both young and old.

Rumba rhythm – a rhythm of passion and passion is fleeting

The film by French director Bruno Romy, who already won a festival award previously, is a film about Fiona and Dominique. The English language teacher and physical education teacher are a married couple who express the passion they feel for each other in the rhythm of the Latin American dance. A car accident in which Fiona loses her leg and Dom his memory changes their lives forever, but bring them something else… Without excessive words or excessive minutes (the film lasts for 77 minutes), at times darling as “Eagle Vs. Shark” with dance sequences that bring back the time of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and with slapstick humour, but with a big dose of naturalness. We will remember the dance of shadows of alienated people and the guitar on a bon fire!

The programme and accompanying programme, a relaxed and more relaxed atmosphere 

After the film ended, the audience moved from the cinema to the lobby where the band Osvajaci medjunarodnih priznanja held a concert.

Dominique Abel readily accepted a comparison of the introduction of “Rumba” in which he dances dressed in a tracksuit with the video spot of the Kings of Convenience for their song “I’d Rather Dance than Talk with You”.