20th FPS: New experiences of current and upgraded reality
The jubilee edition of the 20th 25 FPS International Experimental Film and Video Festival will take place from 24 to 28 September 2024 at the Kinoteka cinema in Zagreb. As usual, a special program will be held in Rijeka as well (3 and 4 October), and for the first time in Split (30 and 31 October).
“This year’s line-up reveals a strong need to achieve an adequate cinematic language that would express a new experience of the current reality. Such devices have been a constant in the avant-garde cinematic currents from the very beginning. Contemporary films differ in being less invested in cinematic experimentation for art’s sake and more preoccupied with specific personal, social, civilisational and existential issues. There are many works that erase the lines between documentary and animated genres, as well as between the film medium, gaming world and UI technologies. At the same time, genres like found footage and structuralist films have taken “upgraded” and modernized forms. The festival selectors, Marina Kožul, Mario Kozina and Tena Trstenjak, highlight the important themes of intergenerational communication, ecological crisis, mental health, and the need to upgrade, replace, or overcome reality that surrounds us. During the five festival days, the competition program will screen 26 films, accompanied by a rich offer of numerous screenings, workshops, round tables and events in the side program.
Several of the titles in the program have screened at prestigious international film festivals, including Revolving Rounds, which premiered at Locarno Film Festival, a magical film made by Johann Lurf and Christina Jauernik. Lurf is already a well-known and welcome guest of the 25 FPS Festival – his film Reconnaissance was awarded Special Mention at the 25 FPS Festival in 2013, while Vertigo Rush received the Critics’ Jury Award in 2008; he was also a member of the Grand Jury in 2014.
Other internationally successful titles include Norika Sefa’s Like a Sick Yellow, which screened at IFFR and was awarded Best Documentary Short at Sarajevo Film Festival, as well as Inès Sieulle’s The Oasis I Deserve, which received an award in the short documentary film program at IndieLisboa; the film takes us on a terrifying and intoxicating journey seen from the perspective of an AI.
Some other gems in the program include Shrooms, a new film by the Portuguese director and festival laureate Jorge Jácome, whose short Flores won Grand Prix in 2017. Shrooms follows a young, new-age Robin Hood in search of magic mushrooms, on a mission to help people. Nastja Säde Rönkkö returns with salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears, in which she tackles the topics of identity, a scarred planet, and our ever-changing world.
The program boasts a series of auditory and visually progressive works, such as The Electric Kiss by Rainer Kohlberger, inspired by the history of the media and science fiction, as well as by VR technology. The Sun to Me Is Dark is a conceptual media film by Lina Selander and Oscar Mangione, which merges outdated special effects technology and the remains of vanished civilisations.
The competition line-up is rounded by two Croatian films which have achieved a successful run on the festival circuit; Pain, the last visual testimony made by the late multimedia artist Ivan Faktor, and I Would Rather Be a Stone by Ana Hušman, in which the striking vistas of the mountainous region of Lika mix with the director’s personal and family history. Hušman is also this year’s winner of the Vedran Šamanović Award, given for original and innovative contributions to Croatian Cinema.
Croatian hybrids for all senses
As part of the special program Reflexes, the festival is screening another six Croatian films that challenge, stretch, and break the boundaries of film language – be it through video games or animation, through a touch of fabric, the smell of sulphur, or autofiction: I Can Save Her by Petra Mrša, Dragon Hunt by Marko Gutić Mižimakov, Reviving Grandpa by Sandra Sterle, Stitch the Ruin by Željka Blakšić (Gita Blak), Womanhouse by Ivana Ognjanovac, and The Architecture of Healing: Sulphurous Scapes (43° 30.547′ N, 16° 26.22′ E) by Nina Bačun.
25 FPS Festival Awards
The members of the 20th 25 FPS Festival Grand Jury are the American-Austrian filmmaker Eve Heller, film artist Tomislav Šoban, and writer/director Varja Močnik. The Critics’ Jury Award wil be decided by Dino Staničić, Marija Krstanović and Oskar Ban Brejc. Films in the program also compete for the Audience Award, while the Croatian films have the opportunity to win the Green DCP Award, presented by the 25 FPS Association for Audio-Visual Research.
Admission to all screenings and events of the festival is free, with a requisite free ticket that can be collected at the Kinoteka cinema box office (Kordunska 1).