VESNA AWARDS
Vesna Award for Best Feature Film
Family Therapy
Directed by: Sonja Prosenc
Production: Rok Sečen, Sonja Prosenc (Zavod MONO O)
Jury statement: Family Therapy raises the theme of the dysfunctional family in an original, bold and humorous way, placing it in a broader social context. This is a brave and insightful satire that brings a new wave of energy to Slovenian cinema.
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Vesna Award for Best Director
Hanna Slak
for Not a Word
Jury statement: We all believe we are good, and our identities are based on that. Hanna Slak builds the mother-son relationship on this premise, skilfully using the power of symbolism. This elevates the narrative to a higher level of expressiveness and demonstrates the talent of a director capable of drawing the audience into the lives of her characters.
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Vesna Award for Best Screenplay
Sonja Prosenc
for Family Therapy
Jury statement: Using social satire in a highly intimate way, the screenplay eschews established narrative conventions, moving beyond the safe confines of realism. Here, the poetic breathes with the political, constantly offering space for deeper reflection.
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Vesna Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Katarina Stegnar
for her role in Family Therapy
Jury statement: Katarina Stegnar as Olivia is the central character of the film’s microcosm who relentlessly strives to maintain the appearance of a perfect family, while insisting on the emotional coldness and strained detachment to represses her primary impulses. Katarina Stegnar has shaped her role with great inner intensity and uncompromising consistency, creating one of the most enigmatic female characters in contemporary Slovenian cinema.
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Vesna Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Marko Mandić
for his role in Family Therapy
Jury statement: Marko Mandić has nuanced his Alexander into a creature who, for all his material prosperity, is full of weakness, fears and prejudices. A person who, in the face of the misery of his real existence, takes refuge in fantasies of a perfect family. And also into a person who, deep down, has the capacity to love. But it takes a good knock on the head to show that love. Marko Mandić has shaped his role in such a way that, at that decisive moment, we are ready to believe in him unconditionally.
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Vesna Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Mila Bezjak
for the role in Family Therapy
Jury statement: Mila Bezjak plays the child of the toxic relationship between Olivia and Aleksander with youthful authenticity and energy, giving her heroine an unusual depth and maturity that makes Agata, within her dysfunctional family, seem like its brightest spot.
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Vesna Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Krešimir Mikić
for his role in Ciao Bela
Jury statement: In Ciao Bela, a film driven by child characters, Krešimir Mikić plays a middle-aged man trying to navigate the challenges of being a single father and finding lasting love. With minimal gestures, without superfluous words, he creates a father figure who gives his daughter compelling emotional support.
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Vesna Award for Best Cinematography
David Hofmann
for Block 5
Jury statement: David Hofmann’s cinematography gives Block 5 a youthful freshness, dramatic tension and an impression of spontaneous randomness. Hofmann illuminates the subjects and the filming locations in a way that gives the image an obvious aesthetic value, without in any way detracting from the authenticity of the objects in front of the camera.
Special mention:
Gregor Božič
for The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent
Jury statement: In Nebojša Slijepčević’s short film The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent, Gregor Božič showed how powerful a means of expression one small camera movement can be and how big a film one can make in a small space.
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Vesna Award for Best Original Music
Boris Benko, Primož Hladnik
for Family Therapy
Jury statement: The music in Family Therapy cannot be separated from the moving images. The composers have created a musical fabric that is entirely at the service of the story of a tragicomic family, and blends in with the aesthetics of the film.
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Vesna Award for Best Editing
Uroš Maksimović
for Cent’anni
Jury statement: Finding the right balance and the essence of the story to convey a painful personal experience to the audience without stereotypes and superfluous information was undoubtedly a challenge. The editor rose to it brilliantly with the selection and arrangement of the material, skilfully linking all levels of the story – personal, familial, moral and spiritual. That said, this poignant film would not exist without directorial input in the editing room.
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Vesna Award for Best Production Design
Tajana Čanić Stanković
for Family Therapy
Jury statement: Rarely do we see production design being such a strong narrative element, in direct dialogue with the actors and the action. The seemingly perfect and visually polished world is constantly imbued with a sense of unease.
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Vesna Award for Best Costume Design
Katarina Šavs
for Block 5
Jury statement: With its playfulness and authenticity, Katarina Šavs’ costume design takes us into the universe of today’s youth and contributes to an emotional portrayal of a world that we often fail to hear.
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Vesna Award for Best Make-up
Tina Lasič Andrejević
for Not a Word
Jury statement: Tina Lasič Andrejević’s discreet make-up design supports the realistic conception of Not a Word and subtly heightens the characters’ psychological states, helping the actors’ creations come to life in their fullness.
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Vesna Award for Best Sound
Boštjan Kačičnik
for Once Upon a Time in Soča Valley
Jury statement: Although the remote, mysterious world of the Old Faith is difficult to relate to today, the one element of Once Upon a Time in Soča Valley that is particularly successful in how intensely it makes it accessible to us, are the sound layers that Boštjan Kačičnik has masterfully combined into an indivisible and expressive whole.
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Vesna Award for Best Minority Co-production
Not a Word
Directed by: Hanna Slak
Slovenian co-producers: Miha Černec, Jožko Rutar (Staragara)
Jury statement: With the help of Slovenian co-producers Miha Černec and Jožko Rutar, Hanna Slak has created, in Germany and with German actors, an exquisite intimate drama about a mother and a son, about repressed and unspoken things waiting to resurface.
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Vesna Award for Special Achievement
Block 5
Directed by: Klemen Dvornik
Jury statement: Block 5 does not underestimate its audience, nor is it afraid to raise pressing issues within the youth film genre in a communicative and humorous way.
Special mention:
Matevž Jerman and Jurij Meden
for Alpe-Adria Underground!
Jury statement: The film has succeeded in plucking from oblivion a precious piece of Slovenian film history from the second half of the 20th century. It will help the audience understand the relationship between mainstream Slovenian cinema and the various avant-garde movements, and to appraise them within the cultural space of the former Yugoslavia.
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Vesna Award for Best Documentary
A Tree Grows in My Dreams Every Night
Directed by: Vid Hajnšek
Jury statement: The Vesna for Best Documentary is awarded to A Tree Grows in My Dreams Every Night by Vid Hajnšek, for a work of absolutely outstanding creativity. The film is distinguished by a subtle poetics in which time and breath stand still. Man, landscape, animals, history and tradition merge into one – the Haloze hills.
Special mention:
Snatched from the Source
Directed by: Maja Weiss
Jury statement: We wish to highlight Maja Weiss’s work Snatched from the Source, in which archival material becomes the creative and emotional building block of the story.
Special mention:
Once Upon a Time in Soča Valley
Directed by: Ema Kugler
Jury statement: We wish to highlight Ema Kugler’s Once Upon a Time in Soča Valley for her directorial choices, which, in the absence of lore and material from the location, create a living monument to a pagan past that has been erased by the cruelty of Christianisation.
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Vesna Award for Best Short Fiction Film
The jury chose not to present the award.
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Vesna Award for Best Animated Film
Three Birds
Directed by: Zarja Menart
Jury statement: The Vesna for Best Animated Film goes to Zarja Menart’s Three Birds. This visually refined animation speaks subtly about woman’s nature. Images of ancient female alliances, connection to nature and rituals are intertwined to create emotional tension.
Special mention:
Catlands
Directed by: Ana Čigon
Jury statement: Special mention goes to the animated film Catlands by Ana Čigon for its humorous take on the proverbial Slovenian attitude to borders and fences.
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Vesna Award for Best Experimental AV Work (Experimental Film)
Vel Vet Vel_Festival Film
Directed by: Miha Možina
Jury statement: Vel Vet Vel_Festival Film by Miha Možina straddles film genres and modes and stretches between the intentional and the experimental. Through a playful erotic form, it seduces us in a way that makes us forget its intention.
Special mention:
The Future… Is Just Like You Imagined
Directed by: Sara Bezovšek
Jury statement: Special mention goes to Sara Bezovšek’s experimental film The Future … Is Just Like You Imagined, which skilfully translates her intermedia installation into a film, testing the principle of the telephone screen on the cinema screen.
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Vesna Award for Best Student Film
The jury chose not to present the award.
Special mention
Beyond the Face, Anja Resman
(Un)Lucky Day, Karin Likar
The Window, Nel Jeraj Sedej
Interface, Špela Koščak
Threads, Iza Mlakar
After, David Champaigne
Jury statement: Given the extremely rich selection of student films this year, we are not worried about the future of Slovenian cinema. It was difficult to choose, and it would be unfair to award the prize to just one film in so many different genres: fiction, documentary, experimental and animation. That is why we decided to cut this year’s Vesna into six parts, as we believe there are six films that deserve it equally. Due to the festival rules, this was not possible: the Vesna can only be awarded to one film. So, in accordance with the rules, we are awarding six special mentions, but we still consider them symbolically as the Vesna Award, while taking this opportunity to call again for a recast of the rules. But if you ask us, each of the winners should be allowed to keep the Vesna with them for two months of the year.
Each of the highlighted films stands out for certain creative aspects, and it is these that need to be recognised. Anja Resman’s animation Beyond the Face is an intricate work that reflects the artist’s creative maturity. Karin Likar’s (Un)Lucky Day is a playful, witty, imaginative and visually fresh animation. Nel Jeraj Sedej’s The Window is a brave social critique within a film experiment. Špela Koščak’s Interface can be experienced as a deft homage to avant-garde cinema through the sonic imprint of our times. Iza Mlakar has managed to weave an emotionally compelling film with her subtle direction of the actors in Threads. David Champaigne’s After is a genre-defining minimalist film distinguished by a well-executed dramaturgical arc.
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Vesna Award for Special Achievement
Cent’anni
Directed by: Maja Doroteja Prelog
Jury statement: Our Vesna for Special Achievement goes to Maja Doroteja Prelog’s Cent’anni for the bravery of its narrative. Without inhibitions, the film shows an intimate relationship that develops through the unpredictable twists and turns of life. A film becomes a relationship, and a relationship becomes a film.
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Vesna Audience Award
Praslovan
Directed by: Slobodan Maksimović
Average score: 4.91
OTHER AWARDS
Slovenian Art Cinema Association Award
for best feature film
Jury: Suzana Kokalj, Vesna Telič Kovač, and Uroš Zavodnik
The Volta Cinema
Directed by: Martin Turk
Jury statement: In a unique way, Martin Turk’s documentary explores the relatively unknown passion of James Joyce and a group of enthusiasts from Trieste who, with the Volta Cinema, laid the foundations of Slovenian film exhibition. Through the process of making a theatre play, we get to know the people from a century ago and the multinational character of the city by the bay, which is still reflected today not only in cinema, but also in the here and now.
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The Association of Slovenian Film Critics Award
for best Slovenian feature film in the Official Competition
Jury: Maša Peče, Varja Močnik, and Kristian Božak Kavčič
Cent’anni
Directed by: Maja Doroteja Prelog
Jury statement: In this intimate documentary diary, which dissects the dynamics of a romantic relationship, the film itself becomes a protagonist. When in the midst of vast landscapes, we find ourselves in the tight grip of emotions, the frame and a Zastava 750, questions about the relationship between documentary and fiction, the real and the fictional, what we see and what remains hidden, are raised in new and unexpected ways.
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Kosobrin Award for a priceless crew member
Presented by: Directors Guild of Slovenia
Award winner: set painted Nenad Živković Nešo