FACING THE DAY
DIRECTOR: IVONA JUKA
CROATIA 2005
74 MIN / BETA SP, COLOR, OV w. engl. ST
Caligari: 06.04. / 2.30 pm
Bellevue-Saal: 07.04. / 8.00 pm
DIRECTOR:
Ivona Juka
CAMERA:
Mario Oljaca
CREATIVE SUPPORT:
Daniel Kusan
EDITOR:
Ivor Ivezic
SOUND RECORDIST:
Igor Segovic
PRODUCER:
Anita Juka
PRODUCTION:
4 FILM, Zagreb
DISTRIBUTION:
4 FILM, Zagreb
Tel.: 00385 - 1 / 482 87 74
Fax: 00385 - 1 / 482 87 74
e-mail: office@4film.hr
A documentary which centres on inmates of the prison in Lepoglava, Croatia,
and their rehearsals for a production of Shakespeare’s “A
Midsummer Night’s Dream”. The prisoners’ free adaptation
of the play thematizes prison life and their interpersonal relationships.
As they present “their” jail, they tell us why they are there.
The proud and bullish Tulio, for instance, is serving time for armed robbery.
He is cast as Pyramus, a role he accepted only after being told that Pyramus
was the most powerful and sought-after man in Athens. It is Tulio’s
second stay in Lepoglava: Robbery, he says, is the only way to get by
in Croatia, but isn’t as good as it used to be – like many
other things in that republic. His fellow inmates Maki and Zane are convicted
murderers. Deciding his life had reached a dead end, Maki gave himself
up to the police. He is religious, and sits alone at the prison church
services. Zane spends his time painting, unable to face the question of
how, if he ever met a woman who might love him, he would explain what
he did. For him, the applause from the first-night audience is a singular
recognition of his personality. All of the men we see are in a low-security
unit: If they chose, they could simply walk out the gate to the neighbouring
village. But instead they stay – life outside would hardly be an
improvement. Ivona Juka’s film casts an unprejudiced eye on the
life of these men, who are wedged between several worlds at the same time.
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