Poletje ’91

Synopsis

A historical observational documentary highlighting ordinary people as Slovenia broke away from Yugoslavia during the long, hot summer of 1991.
Thanks to a successful appeal for archive material and home movies, Žiga Virc manages to combine images by journalists covering the conflict for TV stations with camcorder and field recordings to take us into the everyday lives of Slovenians at this crossroads in their history, as well as key moments before and after. Commonplace, private, moving and terrifying events that took place out of the usual spotlight and which force us to confront the mundane horrors of war.

Bio/Filmo

Žiga Virc (Novo Mesto, 1987), graduated in film and television directing from the Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television at the University of Ljubljana. Following his highly successful internet trilogy Tine Strela, his short Trst je naš! (2009) won him the recognition that would lead to his first documentary projects for RTV Slovenija made by his production company Studio Virc. He has since made a series of fiction and documentary shorts and features, as well as advertising pieces. He broke onto the world stage with the fake documentary Houston, imamo problem! (2016), which explored a supposed secret Yugoslavian space programme in the early 1960s and picked up a number of awards at the Festival of Slovenian Film, as well as being screened in Karlovy Vary, Zurich and Tribeca. He followed this tremendous hit with the sitcom All My Brother’s Girlfriends and the documentary Poletje ’91.