9th STIFF is open!

One of the selectors, Sendi Bakotić, led the opening of this year’s edition. In addition to the exceptional program this year, she highlighted the record number of volunteers involved in creating the festival.

The 9th STIFF was officially opened by Chris Marcich, director of the Croatian Audiovisual Center — HAVC, praising the festival’s concept by young people for young people. Furthermore, it was pointed out that loyalty is essential for creating future generations of filmmakers. In addition to the support of the institution headed by him, he also considers the support of the City of Rijeka as well as Art-kino as local promoters of the development of audiovisual art to be important.

On behalf of the University of Rijeka, Ph.D. prof. Marta Žuvić, vice-rector for studies, students, and quality assurance, congratulated the organizers on the 9th edition and invited everyone to continue following the festival and celebrate together the next anniversary edition.

—— The festival is something special in which the University participates, and it proves how the University implements its attributes — it is aimed at students who are welcome to participate in the organization of such a large project.

Marta Ban, one of the program selectors, on behalf of the public institution Art-kino, highlighted the atmosphere that reigns in the cinema at every STIFF and thanked the artistic director, Maša Drndić, and the team who bring that atmosphere back every year.

—— A student film is something exceptional and valuable, it is necessary to have space on the big screen for this type of platform of student work.

The festival was officially opened by Maša Drndić, the artistic director of STIFF and one of the three selectors, who expressed her gratitude to the entire team who made the festival expand this year. She invited the audience to watch the rich program at Art-kino and the accompanying program at SKC Gallery until Sunday, November 27, 2022. After that, Sendi Bakotić announced the first of 11 program blocks of this year’s edition of the festival, within which a total of 45 films from 16 countries will be shown.

The first program block, Poluvrijeme / Half-time, marked the beginning of the festival in an unusual way, with a call for a break, that is, a kind of call to play, which is also the thematic determinant of the festival. In the words of the program selectors, Maša Drndić, Sendi Bakotić, and Marta Ban: The sound that interrupts the game, a warning that it is time for a break, that the game has its course and that we are now halfway through. Then, in an intermediate state, interruption, waiting.

The audience thus had the opportunity to watch the animated film Animal Locomotion, which in an expressive collage of archetypes, creates an associative vortex of breaths and sighs in lamentation about the repressed animal instinct in humans. The feature film Blue Noise is about an unexpected hug that is the long-needed rest of a young and lonely soul. Finally, the last film of the first day, Me Myself Andi, about the heroine of the film imprisoned in half-time, on the first pages of her thesis, in the crazy rhythm of emotions, needs, and desires that play their own game in that huge pause in life. The program block ended with a conversation with the director, Lili Zahavi, who pointed out that the film arouses similar emotions worldwide due to its universal theme.

Then the curator Elena Apostolovski, the curatorial team, the authors represented in the exhibition, the volunteers, and workers of the 9th STIFF opened the international exhibition all GAME no PLAY in the SKC Gallery. This exceptional international exhibition is open until Sunday, November 27, 2022.

Today we expect a rich program day with two competitive program blocks – Charades, which starts at 6:00 p.m., and Catch and Toss, which starts at 8:00 p.m. The accompanying program is reserved for the Extended Play, conversations with authors led by Katarina Erak in the SKC Gallery starting at 9:30 p.m., and the performance of Maria Chiara Ziosi, called Some Songs, starting at 10:30 p.m. in the SKC Gallery.

Saturday starts at 10:00 a.m. with a dance improvisation workshop focusing on movement in the exhibition space by Kristina Kekica Paunovski, which will be held in the SKC Gallery. It continues with a workshop on experimental digitization of content led by Josipa Baljak, which starts at 1:00 p.m. in the SKC Gallery. Finally, we continue in the Art-kino with program blocks En Plein, Checkers, Offside, and All in, after which we move to the SKC Gallery for discussions with authors and a festival party.

We start Sunday at 11:00 in the SKC Gallery with a blackout poetry workshop led by Petra Čargonje and Natalija Stefanović. It will continue with the last program blocks Check Point, Time-out, Hide and Seek, Marbles, and the winner’s announcement at 9:30 p.m. in Art-kino, followed by the final festival party.

Entry to all STIFF programs is free.