See you in 10 days on 9th STIFF!

Is there any better way to get into the festival’s mood than with words of those who planned it, who nourished it, who made it all possible? Artistic director and one of three selectors, Maša Drndić invites us in 9th STIFF playful world:

The last three years have thoroughly shaken, tectonically changed our reality. They have invaded our relationships, shaken our notions of closeness. The constant economic and political turmoil has led to rapid change and has drawn new boundaries and borders. The new model of our existence has evolved from one of simple comfort to one of harsh survival. In the desire to use film and art to fight against the destructive, paralysing feelings of this dystopian reality, while also trying to analyse the world through imagination and possibilities, we decided to dedicate the 9th edition of the International Student Film Festival (STIFF) to the forgotten muse of childhood – GAME.

With the film and art program of this year’s festival, we want to explore ways of human action that are not always purposeful. We also want to explore the dual nature of play as a free and spontaneous activity with a prescribed set of constraints and permitted moves. We want to reaffirm the importance of play as an activity through which we learn about ourselves and the world, while upholding the imperative of pleasure and creation.

The competition program consists of 40 films of all genres from 16 countries around the world, divided into 11 program blocks whose titles recall the most famous board games, i.e. the moves and tactics that make them (Half-time • Charades • Catch and Toss • En Plein • Checkers • Offside • All In • Check point • Time-out Out • Hide and Seek • Marbles). Out of competition, five documentary filmmakers from Rijeka, participants of last year’s New School of Documentary Film organised by the Filmaktiv association, will present themselves to the audience in Rijeka.

We are opening a completely unusual space for play through the accompanying program of the festival, which invites us to actively think about our everyday life and experience it in a new way. The multidisciplinary exhibition all GAME no PLAY takes the right to recreate our worlds by appropriating and changing familiar patterns and taking everyday habits to absurdity. The workshop program called Arcade aims to infect participants with wonderful skills from the performing and visual arts, as well as literature: Dance improvisation, recording and digital editing, and the technique of blackout poetry.

The discursive program named Extended play takes place in the fun and informal environment of OKC Palach in the form of late-night conversations with filmmakers and authors of the exhibition program.

Perhaps the greatest pride of this year’s festival is the extraordinarily large number of students (more than 40 volunteers) from the University of Rijeka who are involved in the production of the event as jurors, designers, translators, curators of the exhibition programme, creators of promotional videos, PR, coordinators of film and accompanying events, announcers and discussion moderators.

After the exciting film and art events, the Igranka Festival Party will be held daily at OKC Palach.

As always, all festival programs are completely free!

Let the games beGin!