Sofia International Film Festival

Undoubtedly one of the most distinctive and original directors in
Slovenian cinema, Jan Cvitković, is an old friend of SIFF. Among the
many international festival awards that his films Bread and Milk and Gravehopping gatnered, is No Man’s Land
in the Balkan competition at the SIFF. This year Jan Cvitković comes to
the festival as a mem¬ber of the International Jury as well as with his
new movie Archeo. Archeo
(produced by Jozko Rutar, who also arrives for the 16th edition of the
Sofia International Film Festival) is a chamber surrealistic film, a
rare example of what Cvitković calls “pure cinema”. In the main part we
will see Niko Novak from dirty old blues duo Incurabili, one of the best
known Slovenian underground formations (last year they visited Sofia on
“Alarma Punk Jazz”, n. a.), and the music of the film is en¬trusted to
another cult underground musician (and a writer, poet, prophet,
generally speaking, a prominent figure) – the Bosnian Damir Avdić who
has been living in Ljubljana for several years.

Our
conversation with Jan Cvitković, a day before his arrival in Sofia,
starts from the idea to shoot such an unprecedented film ...

The
main idea was to make a pure film. Not coated story, but a film. More
or less, all movies which are made today, are coated stories, which
means that authors use cameras only to translate the literary form
(script) into pictorial language. They do not use the image itself as a
source of inspiration. And I did just that – used pictures and
atmospheres of my own subconscious to make a film in which any rational
interventions are almost absent. I underwent also hypnotherapy to
achieve relaxation of mind, which was the main condition for creation of
the pictures and scenes that I wanted. When I have already collected
enough of these pictures and scenes, I wrote them on pieces of paper and
then arranged them in a form, some kind of “scenario”. Other scenes
were born at the rehearsals with the actors or during the filming
process.

How did you choose Niko Novak from Incurabili for the main role? As far as I know he has worked with you before – as a designer ...

We are friends with Niko. We have known for a long time and he has the right sensibility  for such a film.

Read the whole interview on SIFF's website.