Zvonka Makuc, Costume Designer
Recipient of the 2024 Milka and Metod Badjura Lifetime Achievement Award
Zvonka Makuc has left her mark on Slovenian cinema as a costume designer. She has created something beautiful, unpretentious, and unobtrusive, but something that has nevertheless remained deeply etched in the memory of many generations. One could even say that her extraordinary work has been imprinted on our collective unconscious.
Makuc has created costume designs for numerous Slovenian and international feature films of various genres, many of which have won awards at film festivals. Zvonka’s first film, Hang On, Doggy (Sreča na vrvici), is one of the most popular works of Slovenian cinema and has influenced generations. She was also the costume designer for Guardian of the Frontier (Varuh meje), the first Slovenian feature film by female director, Maja Weiss.
Zvonka’s first encounter with fashion and fashion design came when she decided to enrol at the School of Design in Ljubljana, which at the time was known for its very liberal educational approach. Her teachers included Alenka Bartl, a legend in Slovenian costume design. Working with very modest means, students of Zvonka’s generation of fashion designers had to show a lot of imagination and ingenuity in their projects. This was a useful lesson for Zvonka Makuc later in her career, since film costume design has almost never received sufficient financial support, even in the best days of cinema. Zvonka took her first professional steps in the world of fashion journalism and consultancy, before moving on to become a costume designer for film, television, and theatre. She herself says that her knowledge of costume design grew through advice from more experienced colleagues, through observation and learning. Her work has been known for in-depth studies of entire projects and individual actors’ roles, resulting in holistic costume designs that always place the costume in the carefully studied context of time and social circumstances of a particular film story. This is why her costume designs are complex, elaborate and meticulously thought-out down to the last detail.
Zvonka Makuc has also been renowned as a master of historical costume design. One of her most remarkable works is the costume design for The Windhunter (Veter v mreži), a film by Filip Robar – Dorin set during World War I, for which she was awarded the Metod Badjura Prize at the Week of Slovenian Film in Celje. She created a masterpiece for Piran – Pirano, a feature directed by Goran Vojnović, by insightfully intertwining the World War II period with the present day. She is also credited with contributing to the most prestigious award in the world of cinema, the Academy Award, having designed costumes for Danis Tanović’s No Man’s Land.
As an outstanding costume designer, Zvonka Makuc is a great mentor and inspiration to many young creatives, not only costume designers but the entire film community. We admire her eye for detail, for nuance. We admire her respectful, yet creative and aesthetically sophisticated attitude towards film characters and their lives, their journeys through the film. We admire her joy for filmmaking, her ethical stance, her sense of the common good and her will.
Zvonka Makuc has been an active member of the film community for almost five decades, and for her, filmmaking has never been a film industry, but always a place where a film community shows its love for cinema. In addition to her work on film, Makuc has created a series of costume designs for almost all theatres in Slovenia; she has collaborated with various directors and created costume designs for a large number of TV series, TV films, TV dramas, documentaries, short films, and educational programmes.
Her outstanding artistic contribution to Slovenian cinema, television, and theatre, as well as to Slovenian art in general, makes the decision to award the Milka and Method Badjura Lifetime Achievement Award for 2024 to Zvonka Makuc more than justified.
The judges for the 2024 Milka and Metod Badjura Award: Lija Pogačnik, Špela Čadež, Sonja Prosenc, Andrej Košak, Milena Zupančič
filmography (selection)
feature films
Sreča na vrvici/Hang on, Doggy!, dir Jane Kavčič, Vesna film, Viba film, 1977
Maja in vesoljček/Maya and the Starboy, dir Jane Kavčič, Viba film, 1988
P.S./P.S. – Post Scriptum (omnibus), dir Marcel Buh, Boštjan Hladnik, Andrej Stojan, Viba film, 1988
Veter v mreži/The Windhunter, dir Filip Robar-Dobrin, AS Filmske alternative, Viba film, 1989
Ječarji/The Jailers, dir Marjan Ciglič, Studio 37, Viba film, 1990
Srčna dama/The Queen of Hearts, dir Boris Jurjaševič, E-Motion film, Viba film, 1991
Radio.doc, dir Miran Zupanič, Arsmedia, 1995
Rabljeva freska/Executioner’s Fresco, dir Anton Tomašič, Timaro Productions, 1995
Nepopisan list/What Now, Luka?, dir Jane Kavčič, Arsmedia, 2000
Nikogaršnja zemlja/No Man’s Land, dir Danis Tanović, Man’s Films Productions, Studio Maj, Noe Productions, Casablanca, Judy Couniham Films, Fabrica, 2001
Varuh meje/Guardian of the Frontier, dir Maja Weiss, Bela film, 2002
Piran – Pirano, dir Goran Vojnović, Arsmedia, 2010
Čefurji raus!/Southern Scum Go Home!, dir Goran Vojnović, Arsmedia, 2013
Komedija solz/A Comedy of Tears, dir Marko Sosič, Arsmedia, 2016
Irena, lahko noč/Goodnight, Irene, dir Miha Možina, Astral film, 2017
television films
Zrakoplov/The Flying Machine, dir Jure Pervanje, Multimedia, RTV Slovenija, Sfinga, Viba Film,1993
Striptih/Stryptych, dir Filip Robar Dorin, Filmal Pro, RTV Slovenija, 1995
Pet majskih dni/Five Days in May, dir Franci Slak, RTV Slovenija, 1997
Želim vse/I Want It All, dir Brane Bitenc, RTV Slovenija, 2004
Trpljenje mladega Igorja/The Sorrows of Young Igor, dir Brane Bitenc, RTV Slovenija, 2006
Kosilnica/Mower, dir Brane Bitenc, RTV Slovenija, 2006
docufiction films
Valček za 4/A Waltz For 4, dir Boris Palčič, Casablanca, RTV Slovenija, 2005
Stanislav Škrabec, Oče slovenske fonetike/Stanislav Škrabec, the Father of Slovenian Phonetics, dir Matjaž Žbontar, Vizualni laboratorij, 2005
documentary films
Otrok Istre – Andrea Antico da Montana/A Child of Istria – Andrea Antico da Montana, dir Samo Milavec, RTV Slovenija, 2000
short films
Lutka/The Doll, dir Franček Rudolf, FAS – Filmski autorski studio, 1969
Samota v dvoje – Večer/Solitude for Two – Evening, dir Nataša Prosenc, Arsmedia, 2000
Izlet/The Excursion, dir Martin Turk, UL AGRFT, 2002
Rezina življenja/A Slice of Life, dir Martin Turk, Arsmedia, 2006
Moj sin, seksualni manijak/My Son, a Sexual Maniac, dir Goran Vojnović, Arsmedia, 2006
TV series
Dosjeji J.K., dir Anton Tomašič, RTV Slovenija, Timaro, 1995–1996
Teater Paradižnik, dir Branko Djurić, RTV Slovenija, 1994–1997
TV Poper, dir Samo Milavec, TV Koper/Capodistria, 2001–2002
Naša mala klinika/ Our Little Clinic, dir Branko Djurić, V. V. Anžlovar, POP TV, 2004–2007
educational TV shows
Periskop, dir Igor Šmit, RTV Slovenija, 1985–1991
Muzikajeto, dir Branko Bitenc, RTV Slovenija, 2016
Previous Recipients of Milka and Metod Badjura Lifetime Achievement Award
2023 Rado Likon
2022 Milena Zupančič
2021 Emilija Soklič
2020 Konrad (Koni) Steinbacher
2019 Andrej Zdravič
2018 Tugo Štiglic
2017 Franci Zajc
2016 Dušan Milavec
2015 Dunja Klemenc
2014 Hanna Preuss
2013 Karpo Godina
2012 Alenka Bartl Prevoršek
2011 Ljubo Struna
2010 Filip Robar Dorin
2009 Mako Sajko
2008 Milan Ljubić
2007 Mirjana Borčić
2006 Peter Zobec
2005 Jože Pogačnik
2004 Vojko Duletič
2003 Rudi Vaupotič
2002 Jože Gale
2001 Matjaž Klopčič
2000 Jane Kavčič
1999 Boštjan Hladnik
1998 Rudi Omota
1997 Berta Meglič
1996 Jože Babič
1995 Ivan Marinšek in/and Dušan Povh