The 9th edition of STIFF film festival dedicated to the forgotten muse of childhood – GAME

From November 24 to November 27, 2022, the 9th edition of the Croatian International Student Film Festival – STIFF will be held at the Art-kino in Rijeka. The festival is organised by Filmaktiv association and the Student Cultural Center of the University of Rijeka in cooperation with Art-kino, the University of Rijeka, the Academy of Applied Arts in Rijeka, and the Palach Youth Cultural Center.

Forty films from 16 countries, chosen from among almost 700 films by the selectors Maša Drndić, Marta Ban, and Sendi Bakotić, are competing for the title of the best feature, documentary, and animated film and for the winner, as chosen by the audience. Nadia Cvitanović, Tomasz Śliwiński, and Nina Damjanović are on the jury in the best feature film category. In addition, Jelena Androić, Jasmina Beširević, and Anja Matić are on the jury in the best in the documentary film category, while Martina Meštrović, Natko Stipaničev, and Laura Čulek are on the jury in the best in the animated film category.

In addition to the competition program, five non-competition films created as part of the New School of Documentary Film education of the Filmaktiv association will be shown.

The 9th edition of the Festival will be opened on Thursday, November 24, at 19:00 in Rijeka’s Art-kino with the program Poluvrijeme / Half-time.

This year’s edition of the festival is dedicated to the Games. According to the artistic director, Maša Drndić:

The last three years have thoroughly shaken and tectonically changed our reality. They have invaded our relationships and 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.

This year more than 40 volunteers, students of the University of Rijeka, are involved in the STIFF organization.  They are involved in the event’s production as jury members, designers, translators, curators of the exhibition program, creators of promotional videos, PR people, coordinators of film and accompanying events, announcers, and conversation moderators.

In addition to the main film program, the festival has a rich side program:

1) the multidisciplinary international exhibition all GAME no PLAY, curated by Elena Apostolovski: 

The exhibition program all GAME no PLAY recreates the world around us, appropriating familiar patterns and flexing them, bringing everyday habits to absurdity. International artists were brought together to take a different view on what it means to be human in an artificial environment and show us how to build communities that collaborate rather than compete while playing the game of (co)existence. The Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia and Stroom Den Haag, the Dutch Center for Visual Arts support the exhibition. The exhibition features international artists from Spain, the USA, Italy, China, the Netherlands and Croatia.

2) a workshop program called Igraonica /Arcade, which aims to infect the participants with excellent skills from the fields of performing, visual arts, and literature: dance improvisation, recording, and digital processing, and the technique of blackout poetry under the guidance of Kristina Kekica Paunovski, Josipa Baljak, Petra Čargonja, and Natalija Stefanović. Participation is free with prior registration: https://bit.ly/9th-STIFF-workshops-applications;

3) the discursive program Doigravanje/Playoff, which this year was tucked away in the fun and informal environment of OKC Palach in the form of late-evening conversations with filmmakers and authors of the exhibition program, and

4) after the exciting film and art events every day in OKC Palah, there is also the Igranka festival party.

The 9th  STIFF is supported by the Croatian Audiovisual Center (HAVC), the City of Rijeka, the Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, Stroom den Haag and the National Foundation for the Development of Civil Society.

Admission to all programs of the 9th STIFF is free.

See you at Art-kino, SKC Gallery, and Palach Youth Cultural Center from November 24 to 27, 2022. in celebration of the movie game!