April 23, 2020 - The Croatian Society of Film Critics published their "The Show Must Go On" publication, to remind the public that movies are still being made, still being watched, and that they remain relevant even during these "shaky" times of the pandemic and international insecurity.
The publication is a collection of selected texts written by the members of the Society, written in 2018 and 2019, available in both English and Croatian. Hrvoje Puškec, the director of the Society explains why the publication has been created, and why the Society felt it was necessary to publish it at this particular moment:
"The project you're looking at started at a time when our biggest concerns were the failure of the most expensive Croatian film since independence, the stagnation of funds for complementary film activities and the diminishing presence of film criticism in the media. Then, after the earthquakes have shaken nearly a quarter of Croatia’s population and in the midst of the global coronavirus pandemic, those worries seem like a jest. We don't know what awaits us, but it's clear that the cultural sector will end up poorly in the new cards shuffling. It always does. New problems will not erase the old ones but will aggravate them, and therefore: in the time of ‘Infection’—‘The Show Must Go On’! The world will not stop, neither should we."
The Croatian Society of Film Critics, just like the Croatian public in general, is facing reduced media coverage when it comes to film. At the same time, there are more films being made than ever before; there is no cultural, media or social platform nowadays that doesn't count on film. So, the film is everywhere, and yet, paradoxically enough, it appears that contemplating film is no longer amusing to the general audiences. Are the critics writing about the films in which the public is not interested? Have the viewers stopped expecting films to offer reality-decoding algorithms? Has cinema given up? Have the audiences? It is impossible to provide an unambiguous answer to these and any other (film-related) questions. What we can be certain about is that film makes for a perfect document of a time, and as such represents both an extraordinary potential and a platform for reflecting on our surroundings, reality and the moment.
Especially when we're talking about the Croatian cinema, which is barely seen in Croatia, let alone abroad. The reasons are numerous, but certainly one of the most important ones is that there is very little coverage of it, especially in the English language. Even when the Croatian film scene gets discussed out in the great wide world, it is predominantly done by foreign critics and press. For all of those reasons, the Croatian Society of Film Critics has decided to make this bilingual publication happen.
More about the publication here, and you can download the .pdf of it in English here.
