Pula Film Festival becoming the most important meeting place of Croatian film and its audience
CROATIAN PROGRAMME
THE HEAD OF A BIG FISH
DIRECTOR: Arsen Oremović
COUNTRY: Croatia
YEAR/DURATION: 2022. • 80’
GENRE drama
WORLD PREMIERE
Info
- SCREENPLAY: Arsen Oremović
- CINEMATOGRAPHY: Marinko Marinkić
- EDITOR: Tomislav Pavlic
- PRODUCTION DESIGN: Dino Topolnjak
- COSTUME DESIGN: Katarina Zaninović
- SOUND: Tihomir Vrbanec
- SCORE: Toni Starešinić
- MAKE UP: Snježana Gorup
- VISUAL EFFECTS: Lado Skorin, 3d2d animatori
- SPECIAL EFFECTS: Drago Poldrugač
- LEAD ACTRESS: Lana Barić
- LEAD ACTOR: Nikša Butijer
- SUPPORTING ACTRESSES: Vanda Sandra Vukadinović, Lana Meniga, Marica Vidušić, Sabrina Herak Smoković
- SUPPORTING ACTORS: Neven Aljinović Tot, Vinko Kraljević, Nenad Cvetko, Ivica Pucar, Sven Šestak
- PRODUCERS: Maja Vukić
- COMPANY: Izazov 365 d.o.o.
Synopsis
Frustrated by the everyday rut and financial debts, taxi driver Andrija tries to find a way out by selling his family’s house in the country where his brother, a war veteran called Traktor, lives. Andrija plans to start his own business, so he invites Traktor to temporarily move in with him and his wife Vesna in the city. The brother’s move into their everyday marital life additionally disrupts their not-so-harmonious relationship.
Trailer
About the director
Arsen Oremović (1966), graduated in film and TV directing from the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb. He worked as a film critic and editor at Večernji list for a number of years, and since 2017 has primarily been working in film and TV directing. He directed the award-winning documentaries Married to a Swiss Franc (2013), The Castle Clash (2014), Third in the World (2015), and That’s the Way It is (2018), the short film Life Is Fair (2015), and three seasons of the documentary TV series Accidents (2018, 2020, 2022). The Head of the Big Fish is his feature debut.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT ON MOTIVATION: These “scenes from a marriage“ within a family that has nothing more in common than shared lunches and dinners, and a naive view of entrepreneurship, shows the broader context of current Croatia, where the tails of war are still felt every day and the murky social transition from one system to another seems to be elusive and doesn’t seem to be meaningful. We have “PTSD victims of war”, but the way we live creates “PTSD victims of peace” as well. The protagonists of this sociopolitical drama are all victims of the time and space in which they live, each in their own way (war, corruption, upbringing), but as much as they are offshoots of this part of Europe, I think their positions are very recognisable in all parts of the world, especially in the always recognisable situations in marriage and entrepreneurial ventures that individuals are naively wiling to take out mortgages on their houses for.
Screening
- Arena – 22.07
23:45
- Valli Cinema – 23.07
15:00
