FESTIVALS

A one minute space:Požega 2003

It seems that 60 seconds, maybe because they pass relatively quickly, often remind the authors of a joke. No less than twenty, out of 49 films which competed for the awards, base their poetics on an unexpected point which is, or should be humorous, not depending on the genre the film belongs to: feature or animated. These two genres were literally the only genres present at this year Festival, together with a few experimental films, disregarded because of their small number, not low quality. A story always has the beginning, the middle and the end, so the film has to be focused on a good ending, a point it makes. Nevertheless, a good point is not a matter of ’content’. It is in the first place, a result of detailed preparation, so in a one-minute film dramaturgy and directing are very important, maybe even more so than in Ben Hur. Still, with a bunch of joke-films, the Film Festival in Požega has always been a place where great non-narrative films have been screened, especially those that are, in the broadest sense of the word, called experimental or avant-garde films, for example films by Valentina Orešic, Sergey Stefanocich and Mladen Buric.

Dario Marković