Slovenian Film Retrospective and Remembering Christo

From the SEEfest archives

In 2011 SEEfest partnered with UCLA Film & Television Archive and the Slovenian Film Center to present the first-ever L.A. retrospective of Slovenian post-WWII cinema. Titled Slovenia Begs to Differ, the program featured VALLEY OF PEACE (Dolina Miru), 1957 Cannes Film Festival’s Best Actor Award for John Kitzmiller in the role of the stranded American paratrooper; and VESNA, 1953 socialist rom-com which was so popular that Slovenia’s highest film honor was also named ‘Vesna;’ The pretty actress Metka Gabrijelčič (pictured above) appeared in two more films before leaving acting for a career in civil engineering!

On the playbill were also THE RAFT OF THE MEDUSA (Splav Meduze, 1980), a whimsical throwback to the dada movement in the Balkan backwaters of the 1920s, when Serbian homegrown Zenitism blew some welcoming breath of fresh air onto the art scene; DANCE IN THE RAIN (Ples v dežju, 1961), an enigmatic drama of love between a brooding young painter and an older actress, played by the lovely Duša Počkaj; and PAPER PLANES (Na papirnatih avionih, 1967), featuring an ad man romancing a young ballerina in the Slovenian Alps.

Ten films were shown at the Billy Wilder Theater housed at the Hammer Museum in Westwood. The films were screened from 35mm archival prints, courtesy of the Slovenian Film Center.

We remember Bulgarian-born artist Christo

Christo was famous for his monumental projects, wrapping landmarks around the world and creating temporary installations such as floating piers, field of umbrellas, or gigantic curtains and pyramid-like structures made of oil barrels. His partner in life and in art, Jeanne Claude, died in 2009. Take a journey through his works and browse the project portfolio.

FRIENDS OF SEEFEST

SEEfest program and activities are supported, in part, by the California Arts Council, a state agency; Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture; and by an Arts Grant from the City of West Hollywood. Special thanks to ELMA, and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for their continued support of our programs.

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