29 May Otok in Ljubljana opens the festival season in June, followed by several satellite screenings of the 20th Kino Otok – Isola Cinema
Just a few days before the main festival event in Isola, the 20th International Film Festival Kino Otok – Isola Cinema will begin its journey in Ljubljana: on Monday, 3 June, the first screening of Kino Otok will take place at Kinodvor in Ljubljana, and the very next day it will light up the screen of the Slovenian Cinematheque. More films will be screened as a part of Otok in Ljubljana in June, September and October. Between 5 and 9 June, the festival days in Izola will be joined by screenings in art cinemas in Cerknica, Idrija, Sežana and Tolmin. The full programme and festival guests are published on the kinootok.org website, and festival ickets and discounted tickets are available for pre-sale on mojekarte.si.
Otok in Ljubljana at Kinodvor: intertwining past and current social reality
On Monday, 3 June, at 6pm, the iconic classic by the cinematic giant Jean-Luc Godard, La chinoise (1967) will be screened at Kinodvor with the support of the French Institute as a part of Otok in Ljublljana. It will be followed by a free screening at 20.15pm of its adaptation, Juste un movement (Just One Movement, Vincent Meessen, 2021), a documentary about the life of Senegalese political activist Omar Blondin Diop. On Sunday, 9 June, at 16.15, also at Kinodvor, audiences of all ages will gather for the Kinobalon screening of Der pfad (The Path, 2022), where the film’s director, Tobias Wiemann, will also be in attendance. On Tuesday, 12 June, at 18.30, there will be a screening of a multi-faceted portrait of Guinea, Au cimetière de la pellicule (The Cemetery of Film, Thierno Souleymane Diallo, 2023), brought to Otok in Ljubljana with the support of the French Institute, followed by a screening at the Slovenian Cinematheque’s Kinodvorišče that evening at 21.30 with Abderrahmane Sissako’s latest film, Black Tea (2024), a mysterious exploration of love and freedom. In September and until the end of October, Here (Here, Bas Devos, 2023), El eco (Tatiana Huezo, 2023) and Brief Encounters (Korotkie vstrechi, Soviet Union, Ukraine, 1967) will follow as the opening film of Kira Muratova’s retrospective of her films at Kinodvor, (Retratos fantasmas, Kleber Mendonça Filho, 2023), Lisandro Alonso’s Eureka (2023) and, in collaboration with the Migrant Film Festival, The Old Oak (Ken Loach, 2023).
Otok in Ljubljana at the Slovenian Cinematheque: big names of the auteur cinema
On Tuesday, 4 June, at 7pm, Otok in Ljubljana will also light up the screen of the Slovenian Cinematheque with the latest feature film by Filipino director and Kino Otok’s friend Lav Diaz, The Essential Truths of the Lake (2023). On Friday, 14 June at 8pm, the documentary Eastern Front (Shidnij front, 2023), made by Vitaly Mansky (also the author of the documentary Putin’s Witnesses) and Yevhen Titarenko, will bring the audience a raw view of the eastern battle line of the current Russian-Ukrainian war. In October, the Slovenian Cinematheque will host a retrospective of films by the unique and often overlooked filmmaker Kira Muratova, organised by the Slovenian Cinematheque in cooperation with Kino Otok and Kinodvor.
Otok Elsewhere: film programme in Cerknica, Idrija, Sežana and Tolmin
Every city can be a cinematic island, which is why Kino Otok is also travelling to other film-friendly cities: on Wednesday, 5 June, the family animated feature Dounia and the Princess of Aleppo (Marya Zarif, Andre Kadi, 2022) will be screened at 6pm in the Tolmin Cinema, followed by a screening of 20,000 especies de abejas (20,000 species of bees, Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren, 2023) at 8pm, a study of interpersonal relationships. Also in Tolmin on Thursday, 6 June, another animated feature for audiences of all ages will be screened, Sirocco et le royaume des courant d’air (Sirocco and the Kingdom of the Winds, 2023), at 6pm, and at 8pm, La chimera (2023), Alice Rohrwacher’s film about longing, which will also be screened at the Idrija Film Theatre on Sunday, 9 June at 7 p.m. On Saturday, 8 June, the Cerknica Cultural Centre will screen the latest film by cult giant Aki Kaurismäki, Autumn Leaves (Kuolleet Leehdet, 2023), at 8pm, and on Sunday, 9 June, the screenings start at 6pm with Dounia and the Princess of Aleppo, followed by La Chimera at 8 pm. On Friday, 7 June, Cinema Sežana will present Sirocco and the Kingdom of the Winds for families at 6pm and Justine Triet’s award-winning Anatomie d’une chute (Anatomy of a Fall, 2023) for adults at 8pm.
The full festival programme is available on the website kinootok.org.
Festival programme booklet (PDF): download link (in Slovenian and Italian).
Arrigoni Open-air Cinema programme leaflet (PDF): download link (in Slovenian and Italian).
Submarine programme booklet (PDF): download link (in Slovenian and Italian).
All ticket information can be found here, pre-sale of festival tickets and discounted ticket sales: mojekarte.si, at the physical sales points of mojekarte.si all over Slovenia and at Kinodvor. The festival box office at the Art Cinema Odeon in Izola will be open from 3 June.