My name is Janez Janša

Finally the time for the screening of our movie in Ljubljana has come.

My Name Is Janez Janša will be screened twice at 23rd International Ljubljana Film Festival in the avantpremieres section, on Nov. 11th at 9 pm at Cankarjev dom and on Nov. 16th at 9.30 pm at Kinodvor in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

It has been said and written so much in the past about this movie, especially from people who never watched it and whose primary intention was the public discredit of its authors and stopping the movie from being released.

It has been said that “the movie is pornographic”. It has been hindered the production. It has been asked the Slovenian Film Center to consider withdrawing its financial support to this production. It has being written that the law in Slovenia will be changed in order to “provide legal grounds for the minister’s discretion management or elimination of such projects at his will”. It has been written that the movie is completely out of place as “instigates political mockery and hatred and discredit an individual”. It has been written that the documentary “is an audio-visual record of sorts, which could have been made for the internet by anyone, without them getting the taxpayers’ money to do it, of course”…

Now it’s about the time to set a mirror in front of these people.

Let’s screen the movie and see what the audience has to say. Looking forward!

Janez

“My name is Janez Janša” will be screened four times in four days at the Zagreb film festival! But let’s start from the beginning. Our documentary is one of the 16 selected for the documentary program at the 10th Zagreb film festival (ZFF). The film’s international premiere will take place just a fortnight after its first screening at the Slovenian Film Festival – that “bloody” Sunday at 10.30 a.m., remember?! And that’s not all. Ours is the only documentary in the program that will be screened four times (two screenings on October 18th and one on October 19th and 21st). Screenings will take place at the Grič Cinema, Dokukino DIC and Museum of Contemporary Art. Prime time, this time!
As quite some of the documentaries at this year’s ZFF represent artistic endeavors, Janez Janša will be in good company: Marina Abramović and Ai Weiwei among others.
Not a bad way to start…
All documentaries will compete for the Golden Pram Award and the author of the best film will receive the amount of 1,000 €. So keep your fingers crossed! For Weiwei, of course :)

I wonder how the movie will be perceived abroad. I’ll keep you posted on this.

Will the critics differ much from the Slovenian ones?

“My Name Is Janez Janša is certainly one of the best Slovenian documentaries in recent years. It brings a seemingly abstract, philosophical issue into the field of social reflection and concretises it to its foundations. As such it will further trigger a multitude of interpretations, because it constantly moves on slippery ground, keeping the viewer in suspense. In addition, it realizes the medium of documentary filmmaking excellently: although it could be conditionally labelled a “talking heads” film, these heads are incorporated in an original and extremely dynamic form of presentation. The film would undoubtedly deserve the best documentary award at this year’s Festival of Slovenian Film…”
— Ženja Leiler, Pogledi, 10.10.2012

Click, Janez
P.S. If you are in Zagreb come around. Janez, Janez and I will be there only on the 18th

Portorož, Slovenia. Sunday 30 september 10.30 am. Festival of Slovenian Film. I was there. And Janez Janša was there too, together with his fellow friend and artist Janez Janša.
How could we have missed the first official screening of our movie My Name Is Janez Janša after all?
The foyer of the auditorium was jam-packed. Good sign. But still I was a bit nervous. A lot of people decided to wake up early in the morning that day to see (at last!) this »controversial« movie. Quite a burden…
Finally the doors of the hall opened to the audience and folks flowed in. The lights went down and the movie started. All the senses of my body were in alert to capture the slightest reaction of the audience.
I should say that, as a matter of fact, the audience reacted exactly in the way I was predicting: laughing there where they suppose to laugh and being serious and focused there where the movie demanded a deeper reflection. But then something unexpected happened: during a certain key sequence of the movie the entire hall suddenly exploded in a long and spontaneous applause. Empathy raised to the power of ten! That meant to me far more that any prize anyone can ever give to this movie.
I know… I’m not telling you what sequence it was, neither the meaning this sequence has within the movie’s dramaturgy line … but, I can’t do it here, right now, on this blog. I rather invite you to attend on of the next screenings. I’m sure you’ll be able to figure out yourself exactly what scene I was talking about.

THANKS FOLKS! THANKS FOR BEING WITH US!

Janez