20 May With Submarine, the young and the old dive in together during the 20th Isola Cinema
Cinematographic Izola once again calls for a family immersion into the worlds of cinema. The Submarine brings a programme for children, young people and families to this year’s Kino Otok – Isola Cinema Festival, where films are explored in a community-based way. From 5 to 9 June 2024, families and friends will meet on board the Submarine at Kino Otok to discuss films that reflect on current social issues, and to create in workshops. The film and creative programme will take place in the company of young selectors, and there is an open call for applications from school and university students who want to get up close to the world of film and festivals.
Animated Worlds brings together films and creative workshops
Legendary Italian illustrator and animator Michele Bernardi is coming to Izola, who also illustrated Francesco Tullio Altano’s famous Pimpa series and Osvaldo Cavandoli’s La Linea series in the past. He will be presenting original animation material from the filmstrip era to a wider audience alongside screenings of his animated films. He will then lead a workshop for participants aged 9 and upwards, who will work together to create a short animation using foils and tracing paper.
The epic animated dream adventure Sirocco and the Kingdom of the Winds (Sirocco et le Royaume des courants d’air, Benoît Chieux, 2023, 6+) builds bridges between poetry and film with a sumptuous visual language, followed by the creative workshop Fair Winds!, where we will make simple wind devices with the Bora Museum from Trieste. For the youngest children, there will be an animation programme called Magical Friendships, followed by an optical toys workshop.
For the workshops by Michele Bernardi and Fair Winds!, registration is required at meri.viler@isolacinema.org and the number of participants is limited. Admission to all the above events is free.
New open call for young film selectors, first screening on 24 May in Sv. Anton
For the second year in a row, students from Istria and beyond are invited to join us as Young Film Selectors during the Isola Film Festival. Together they will watch films, discuss them with their mentors and guest directors, and select one for a summer screening as part of the Cinema Istria programme. They will join a network of several groups of young people – primary school students from Koper and Prad, secondary school students from Ljubljana in cooperation with the Slovenian Cinematheque and students from Italy at the Trieste Film Festival – who have already selected films for this year’s Kino Otok. The opportunity for a unique film-festival experience is open, the open call and application form can be found here.
Submarine brings two films to Kino Otok, selected by young selectors from the Elvira Vatovec Prade Primary School. The Path (Der Pfad, 2022, 9+), about two children and a dog on the run from the Nazis, an adventure about courage and solidarity that has won over children’s and youth juries at festivals around the world, will be watched in the company of director Tobias Wiemann, who will be joined by the young selectors for a post-screening discussion.
Before the programme in Izola, on Friday 24 May at 20.30, a free screening of The Quiet Girl (An Cailín Ciúin, Colm Bairéad, 2022, 13+), a haunting coming-of-age tale filmed in the rarely heard Irish language, will be held at the House of Culture in Sv. Anton, near Koper and it will be introduced by the Young Film Selectors.
Family ticket to cinematic experiences for all members of the family
The Submarine film programme at Kino Otok brings families together through universal stories that provide rich conversation points, so visitors can enjoy a special single ticket for all members of the family. The family animation Dounia and the Princess of Aleppo (Dounia et la princesse d’Alep, Marya Zarif, André Kadi, 2022, 6+) is an emotional and visually stunning journey to Syria, filled with song, fragrance and magical powers, through the eyes of a refugee girl. Through a carousel of images, from camera obscura to social media, the stunning documentary And the King Said, What a Fantastic Machine (Axel Danielson, Maximilien Van Aertryck, 2023, 13+) raises questions about society and the images around us with provocative wit.
Entrance to the Submarine screenings at Kino Otoku is free for educational staff (VIZ),
tickets can be booked the day before the screening at meri.viler@isolacinema.org.
Pre-festival warm-up with the Growing Up subscription
The Growing Up subscription combines a film screening, a theatre performance and a visit to a museum workshop and is aimed at children and young people from the age of 10. It is a collaboration between the Otok Institute, the Koper Theatre and the Koper Regional Museum and can be purchased at the Koper Theatre until 16 May. On Friday 17 May, at 7pm, it brings a pre-festival screening of Across the Border (Flukten over grenzen, 2020), followed in the following weeks by the dance-theatre performance The Diary of Anne Frank and the museum workshop Water in the History of Koper.