On the occasion of the presentation of the Darko Bratina Award to director Nicolas Philibert 
The first screening will be followed by a Q&A with the guests. In collaboration with Tribute to a Vision festival 

Despite addressing a difficult topic, On the Adamant, a look at the lives of patients with mental disorders at a Parisian day-care centre, is full of humour and playfulness. Radiating genuine warmth, it promotes tolerance and calls on society to accept diversity. Winner of the Golden Bear Award at the 2023 Berlinale. 

The Adamant is a unique day-care centre. A floating structure located on the Seine in the heart of Paris, it welcomes adults suffering from mental disorders, offering the kind of care that grounds them in time and space and helps them to recover or keep up their spirits. The team running it tries to resist the deterioration and dehumanisation of psychiatry as best as they can.

Nicolas Philibert’s observation over an extended period of time is motivated by a genuine and contagious interest in all that moves within a community. This gentle, enlightening film invites us to join the welcoming microcosm of The Adamant, celebrating diversity and fostering a sense of our common humanity. 

“I didn’t want to make a film about psychiatry which would lead viewers into an inevitably and eternally sombre world. When you spend time with patients in a place like The Adamant, you find people who seem to be suffering and others who don’t, who have found a kind of balance in their lives, who live with their illness, who have managed to control it and accept it. This balance might sometimes seem a bit wild, or unique to say the least, but there are some really educated, incredibly lucid people there, who are often funny too, even when the situation doesn’t call for it.” (Nicolas Philibert)

Dr. Umberto Galimberti – philosopher, psychotherapist and essayist – returns to Cankarjev dom. He is known to the Italian public for the topics he keeps revisiting, approaching them from a critical distance. Each month, he participates in over twenty events and conferences, and is a sought-after guest of various TV shows. He has visited Slovenia on a number of occasions, and feels a special affinity with Slovenian culture, not least because his late wife was a member of the Slovene minority in Trieste.

At Cankarjev dom, Galimberti will reflect on young people, a recurring subject in his intellectual work. “Young people today are not only suffering from the psychological issues that 'naturally' accompany growing up and coming of age. Their suffering is a cultural problem,” says Dr. Galimberti, adding: “Today, the future is no longer a promise – it is not something that the older generation 'promises' to the younger one, which, of course, expects that promise to be fulfilled. As a consequence, the future is unpredictable.”

The final ballet production of the dance school  Moji baletni koraki   takes you into a magical fairy world where anything is possible – good and bad, order and chaos. Regardless of the circumstances, friendship and dance always prevail.

Performers: Dancers of Moji baletni koraki
Choreography: Nuša Košti
Set Design: Kaja Orel
Costume Design: Gaja Novak

In April 1950, he whom the world had named "The God of Dance", a choreographer and the embodiment of contemporary ballet, died in London at the age of 60. The star of Nijinsky burnt beyond the legend: what do we know of this artist, about whom very few archival recordings have survived, and whose life and work are still subject to different interpretations?

Elisabeth Kapnist’s film reflects both on the bright side of Nijinsky, his artistic genius, and the obscure aspect of his gradual descent into madness. The film focuses on his artistic rise, as well as the relationships with his closest family members and colleagues, especially the most important people in his life, Romola, the woman he married in 1913, and Sergei Diaghilev, his impresario and lover. Nijinsky’s marriage led to a traumatic split from Diaghilev at the end of that same decade.

The documentary film will be followed by a talk with dr. Henrikom Neubauerjem.

Length: 98 minutes
Subtitles: /
Language: Slovenian

Woman of God follows the Protestant pastor Jana for years on her way to step away from the Church. But this difficult decision brings additional challenges to her - she has to confront first her sexual abuse from the childhood, long buried family wounds and the newly diagnosed life-threatening disease.

Duhovnica SLO Trailer from Studio Virc on Vimeo.

Screenplay: Antonio Lukich
Cinematography: Misha Lubarsky
Cast: Amil Nasirov (Kolja), Ramil Nasirov (Vasja), Lyudmyla Sachenko (Larisa Petrivna), Nataliya Gnity (mama), Karina Cherchevych (Maša)
Producent: ForeFilms

A fast-paced, bittersweet Ukrainian family drama about the complex relationship between estranged twins and their eventful journey to see their dying father whom they overidealised as children.

The city of Lubny, 1998. Seven-year-old twins Kolya and Vasya are full of mischief and need their gangster father to rescue them. They have mythologized the man since their birth. Twenty years later, Vasya is a married cop dedicated to serving the public. Kolya is a bus driver, deals drugs and still lives at home with their mother. Their father has been gone for those two decades. Then, they receive a call from the Ukrainian consulate in Luxembourg informing them that their father is in hospital. If they want to say goodbye, they need to come and visit. Kolya feels as if their father is leaving them for a second time and is desperate to make the trip. Vasya takes more persuading.

About director
Born in 1992, in Uzhhorod, Ukraine, Lukich graduated from the Kyiv National Karpenko-Karyi University with a degree in film direction. His first feature film, My Thoughts Are Silent (2019), received multiple awards at international film festivals. Lukich is laureate of the Ukrainian Film Academy and winner of the Merited Artist of Ukraine Award.

Filmography
2019 My Thoughts are Silent
2022 Luxembourg, Luxembourg (Luksemburg, Luksemburg)
 

Slavenka Drakulić's Invisible Woman consists of a series of fragile and painful intimate stories, confessions and insights addressing the question why age and aging are practically forbidden topics in our modern society that shatters all taboos. Do we become invisible with age? What happens to our bodies, to our relationships with others and, more importantly, to the attitude of others towards us? Why do the links we forge throughout our lives suddenly become weak and tenuous?

Screenplay: Andrew Haigh, Taichi Yamada (novel)
Cinematography: Jamie Ramsay
Cast: Andrew Scott (Adam), Paul Mescal (Harry), Carter John Grout, Jamie Bell, Claire Foy, Ami Tredrea, Cameron Ashplant, Lincoln R. Beckett, Jack Cronin, Christian Di Sciullo, Oliver Franks, Hussein Kutsi, Gsus Lopez
Subtitles: Slovenian
Language: English

One night in his near-empty tower block in London, Adam has a chance encounter with a mysterious neighbour Harry, which punctures the rhythm of his everyday life. As a relationship develops between them, Adam is preoccupied with memories of the past and finds himself drawn back to the suburban town where he grew up, and the childhood home where his parents appear to be living, just as they were on the day they died, 30 years before.

The Balkans abound in cults, magic and spirits of all kinds. The vampire and werewolf, actually one and the same creature characterised by the taboo of its name, is certainly the most representative example. Fairies, witches, semi-demonic mortals such as zduhać, Bosnian-Montenegrin-Albanian fighter with natural elements, water creatures, the ajdje ogres, dwarfs, tree protectors, magical animals, plants with the ability to change living beings, cursed spaces, jinxed objects, rituals, it all left behind a rich legacy, a treasure trove of art and popular culture motifs. On the other hand, it is precisely this treasury that fuels stereotypes, which in turn give rise to the misunderstanding of the Balkan reality and the false picture of the imaginary Balkans as a dark, dangerous and mysterious place. Magic beings enjoyed the greatest international visibility: apart from the widely known Dracula, Hollywood culture is also familiar with vamp, an abbreviation of vampire, and exclusive to female specimens. Film and comics are ideal mediums for conveying this strand of the Balkan culture. 
 

Women played a leading role in keeping alive the tradition of oral literature – including folk epics. From antiquity to the present day women's lamentations have constituted the only proven continuity in the Balkan culture, which opens up a wide field of gender ratio in the patriarchate, societal attitude towards death, birth and fertility... Women, often censored in church texts, forgotten in national literature, omitted from chronicles and historiography, are found behind the scenes, in the complexity of historical events, in the covert diplomacy and different politics, and above all in everyday life, in the customs and knowledge delegated to women. In exploring the female world relegated to the fringes of patriarchal society, historical anthropology reveals exceptional prerogatives, knowledge and competence of women in culture and art, traditional medicine, education, cults and social rules. What are the traces of the female world in culture?