August 20, 2020 – After some audience members last year successfully saw films from boats, more attendees will be invited to watch from the waves at this weekend's Rab Film Festival
Visitors to this weekend's Rab Film Festival will have an experience as close to seafaring as it is to cinema-going. In response to epidemiological guidelines, the festival has had to think creatively about seating arrangements. And, they've decided to place over half the audience on boats.
“We rented two boats with a usual capacity of 150 people from which people can watch the films,” Rab Film Festival organiser Robert Tomić Zuber tells TCN. “Under epidemiological guidelines, we should be able to seat between 80 – 100 people across those.”
“A lot of people from Rab already have their own boat, so we invited all of them - and visitors who are here with boats - to come and watch the films for free from their own. We figured it was the safest way to approach the screenings this year.”
Some of the 2019 audience watched from boats. This year there will be even more. © Rab Film Festival
At 2019's Rab Film Festival, audience members were seated on a long pier, stretching out into the sea, flanked by a number of small boats. The screen faced out towards the open waters (main picture). “Last year we had about 200 people seated there,” says Robert. “This year it will be about 70.”
The 2020 Rab Film Festival begins at 8pm on Saturday 22 August and will this year showcase two movies. 'Current Sea' is a tense ecological documentary looking at the overfishing of Cambodian waters by intruding Vietnamese fishermen. “It's a documentary thriller, filmed by American director Christopher Smith,” Robert tells us. “The film was not premiered internationally until now. This is the first screening outside the US.”
The second film, 'Mater' by Croatian director Jure Pavlović, is described by Robert as something of a “little blockbuster here in Croatia.” A Dalmatian drama with lots of humour, the film had its world premiere at the prestigious Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival at the end of last year and was named best film from the region at the Belgrade FEST.
